


Samaritan

by handful_ofdust



Category: Oz (TV)
Genre: Alcohol, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Canon-Typical Racism, Canon-Typical Violence, Drugs, M/M, severe consent issues
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-01-08
Updated: 2017-01-17
Packaged: 2018-09-15 11:08:09
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 6
Words: 27,293
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9232190
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/handful_ofdust/pseuds/handful_ofdust
Summary: Vern gets his parole and meets up with Beecher again, on the outside. Things go pretty much like you'd think.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> AU, deviating from most of the way through Season One. The characters of the Old Man, Rachel Renton Schillinger, Jan and Cory are Jossed-by-canon OCs I made up while writing "My Wife and My Dead Wife", so you could consider this a spin-off from that.

Mid-September, fall sliding fast into winter--damp grey streets slick with rain under a smog-stung haze of soupy inner-city twilight, salt-thick and half-congealed, like blood from the air. Neighborhood's like a half-rotten parody of itself, an endless parade of garbage, immigrants, immigrant garbage; the Old Man's shop's been closed since May, when they levelled that last health-code violation on him, and now its sign swings precarious on one broken length of chain, name half-erased by Vietnamese gang graffitti. Same pattern Vern Schillinger's passed back and forth beneath his whole life, familiar as the lines on his palm: A predestined genetic map of pride and prejudice, bravado and butchery: _SC--L--NGE-'S -EATS, -CHI--NGER -N- SONS, PROP._

 _Sons,_ plural. And ain't THAT a laugh and a half--considering Vern, same "ungrateful jailbird bastard" Karl Schillinger Senior used to say he wouldn't spit on if he was on fire, is now the only one of those sons left to carry on his name, keep his shop from falling apart, or take his sorry-ass old alkie crap in general.

 _Kinda like you and YOUR boys, you stop to think about it,_ Vern hears a little voice in the back of his head muse, unprompted. Not that he actually does that, anymore...

(Much.)

Cory in the hospital, emaciated and unresponsive, after one last all-night binge and a two-story fall; Jan in Lardner, half-crazed from longterm use, after a botched liquor-store robbery and a high-speed freeway chase. And Vern, after all those careful sessions of perfectly-faked remorse with McManus, Glynn, Sister Pete, after the riot stretched a three-month wait to an eleven-month-plus slow crawl, after that excruciating parole board shuck-'n'-jive and a whole half-year spent tracking his wayward children down, desperate to intervene and re-compensate, the entire earthly reason he wanted out of Oz early, in the first  fuckin' place--cut off from them both, yet again, by the sudden reappearance of his "dead" wife Rachel: Back from the void, trailing their whole shared history behind her. Standing in that waiting room doorway with one hand on her nigger and the other on that little... _spawn_ of theirs...

Rachel's voice now, at his mind's ear: _Her name's Jacoba, Vernon._

The daughter they'd both wanted so badly, plucked full-grown from another man's balls. His sainted mother's name, hung on some high-yellow mongrel. And Vern, shaking at the sight of her, sickened, whiter than pure-white. Thinking: _Christ Jesus, get me out of here, NOW. Before I--_

(--kill all three of them. With my bare fucking hands.)

He can't ever remember feeling quite so enraged, so betrayed. So utterly, fucking...helpless. Never.

Not even the _first_ time she left him.

But: Screw it, Vern tells himself. She made her bed. And if Jan and Cory would rather lie in it with her, after all the sacrifices he's made on their behalf, the hardships he's endured--the pain of serving five years hard time just for standing firm, sticking up for his race and protecting his family by doing what any self-respecting white man should, given the circumstances, without stopping to think twice about it--then screw _them,_ too.

So he'd stalked out, wordless, leaving them at it: The race-mixing mother and child reunion, like some nightmarish, Liberal-written TV sitcom playing itself out in front of his horrified eyes. Hasn't been back since. Which doesn't mean he hasn't kept himself busy, in the meanwhile--the Old Man, with typically convenient timing, having already seen to _that._

"Fuckin' Jew bankers," he always manages to rasp at least once--between hacking fits-- during Vern's visits, those daily turns playing reluctant nursemaid and verbal punching-bag. "Piss my savings away on some insider trading scam, then tell me I never had any; may be sick, but I ain't lost THAT much'a my mind. Yet."

"Yeah, Dad."

"None'a this woulda happened, you'd had the good goddamn sense to stay the fuck outta jail for a few years straight, 'stead'a leavin' me with those no-good kids of yours. You know that's what killed your Grossmutter, right?"

"Yeah, Dad."

Mimicking, high and savage: "'Yeah, Dad.' 'Yeah, Dad.' What are ya, some kinda broken record? You sound like a fuckin' parrot."

While Vern just keeps his head down, smiling grimly, refusing to be provoked. Keeps right on nodding, endlessly--and absently--agreeable: _Oh yeah, uh huh, you are SO right, Dad. Like always._

(Now do us both a favor and go ahead and _die,_ already...or get better, so I can kick your fuckin' ASS.)

If only the cirrhotic old son-of-a-bitch wasn't so obviously terminal, Vern could afford to yell back, _fight_ back, give him tit for tat and blow for blow, the way they're both used to treating each other, instead'a feeling he has to act so restrained all the time. But picking a fight with a (hopefully) soon-to-be-dead man just seems like an exercise in pointlessness; there's no jizz in it. So Karl Senior lays up in that apartment above the shop with his liver coming apart one piece at time and jaundice turning everything but the inside of his foul old mouth a truly grotesque shade of green-tinged yellow, smelling so bad it's like he's already dead but too motherfucking mean to stop breathing. And Vern goes back and forth under the sign outside, up and down the narrow stairs to that four-room slice of Hell he grew up in, toting bags of groceries and cleaning supplies--washing his estranged father's dishes and doing his laundry, culling his remaining possessions for sale, storage or junk, keeping his empty shop free of dust and roaches.

Wiping his ass while taking his shit, well aware that the Old Man's natural pissiness is being made all the sharper by almost fifty years' worth of hatred...and whipped to an additional fever pitch, on top of it all, by knowing that he finally needs his long-despised youngest child's help with _anything,_ let alone the embarrassingly messy process of dying.

It's a literally crappy job, and Vern doesn't really _have_ to do it, he supposes; could just turn the desiccated old fucker over to the folks down at All-Saints and be done with it, Karl Senior's well-publicized views on "Jew doctors" notwithstanding. But it's numbing enough to take his mind off the rest of his equally joyless post-release life, to exhaust him so that he can actually grab a few hours sleep each night without fear of dreaming of Rachel and waking anger-hard, fists and teeth clenched in loss. Or dreaming of Oz, and feeling a--truly _frightening_ \--little hitch of disappointment when he realizes, in almost the next breath, that he isn't actually there anymore.

(Institutionalization is _such_ an ugly word. Isn't it, Vern?)

He slips the shop's back door key into its hiding place above the lintel, ready for tomorrow's friendly little Schillinger family get-together, and starts towards the corner where he'll catch his work-bound bus. And in a crack between SC--L--NGE-'S and the next two empty buildings, that same damn homeless man spins and sings--an annoyingly subhuman blur glimpsed just to the far right-hand limit of Vern's bad eye, braying vaguely familiar words to an off-key, air-guitared tune.

"'...gih ya my worl'...how can I, when ya won' take it fruhmme...?"

And the mental echo, almost immediately, taking up a lyrical thread Vern didn't even know he remembered: _You can goooo your own waaay... (Goooo your own waaay) You can call it another lonely daaaay..._

Inexplicably drawn, Vern turns his head sidelong like a vulture staking out prey, and studies this wreck through the unscarred lens of his left cornea: face and neck tanned but obviously Caucasian, a mop of hair matted into stiff, dirty brown-blond dreadlocks from bad hygiene and constant exposure, shot through with streaks of grey; similarly grey-streaked scruff of beard, also slightly dreaded. He's dressed in the ruin of a fairly good suit, tieless and shoeless, soles of his bare feet abraded black with dirt, toenails like broken claws. Gesticulating wildly enough to reveal, on the inside of each wrist--almost hidden under grimy cuffs, but gaze-catchingly infection-red--a ridged arrow of fresh-sutured scar-tissue, pointing towards the heel of each hand.

(Huh.)

And: _Knew to cut the right way, at least,_ Vern thinks. _Like he meant it._ Which must mean he's at least still sane enough to see his bent parody of a life's not worth living, in between bottles.

(Jesus, though. Like you got nothin' else to do but analyze street freaks all fuckin' night.)

He gives himself an impatient little shake and starts to step past only to watch the homeless man whip around at the movement, glazed eyes narrowed against the last of the setting sun, unfocussed but fearless, knife-slits of incongruously pure pale blue. Thrusting an upturned palm into Vern's personal space--nails grey-rimmed and ragged, sticky with shit knows what--and demanding, not begging, in his eerie sandpaper voice: " _Change._ "

"The fuck for?" Vern snaps, automatically on the defensive, and gets nothing but a half-huff, half-snort in reply. Like: _Well, what do you THINK, moron?_ " _Booze?_ " The bum suggests, acidly; brazen, nut-bag motherfucker!

But: "Fuck you, you fuckin' lunatic," Vern shoots back, poise regained. And keeps on walking, even as the homeless man hisses at his back through discolored kitten-teeth--a nasty, animal sound. Then sneers, weirdly lucid, as the bus pulls up between them: " _Samaritan._ "

(Say...WHAT?)

By the time Vern looks back, however, he's already gone.

*** 

Work, these days, is an eight-hour janitorial evening shift in the Meteorscan Weather-Monitoring Services building, dumping out shred-baskets and vacuuming office cubicles 'till two in the morning. Couldn't get his old job back down at the Post Office, 'cause they finally started checking people's records; took 'em long enough, what with every maladjusted, mail-humping freak in creation turning his pink slip in for an Uzi on what seemed like a yearly basis. And his A.B. contacts, once so seemingly solid, haven't been worth shit since the gates of Oz closed fast behind him: His parole officer, Mr Hamid--some thirty-year-old sand nigger with a grudge who's made it clear he's just _waiting_ for a chance to violate Vern back inside faster than either of them can whistle "Dixie"--has already warned him he won't be allowed to hang with his old crowd anytime soon, even the ones who've never been convicted of more than using harsh language at a pro-Revisionist rally.

Vern's the only white man on his crew, so he tries to make sure his time at Meteorscan involves as little "friendly" chit-chat as possible. Which'd be a considerably easier task if he wasn't paired with Charlie Cutter, a gangly Chris Rock clone who can't seem to go five fuckin' minutes without opening his big-lipped mouth about _something_ , be it the size of his bitch's booty, or the sheer range and volume of stolen goods he sells out the back of his truck over every half-hour break, out in the company parking-lot.

"Exactly what makes you think I wanna buy shit from you, you dumb-ass jungle bunny?" Vern growls at him tonight, in no mood for this particular brand of bullshit. To which Charlie responds, blithely--apparently not even insulted: "Oh, I guess I just wait 'n' see, Adolf, baby. Thass my mot-to: Wait 'n' see." Throwing back, over his shoulder, as he turns his vacuum into the next cubicle: "'Cause, fact is--when you sellin', eventually... _everybody_ buyin'."

(Yeah, well.)

"Don't hold your fuckin' breath," Vern mutters, under his. And sees, in the back of his mind, fading in and out like some teasing, repetitive tape-loop, the phantom image of that same damn homeless man, inescapable as breath--dancing, singing. SNEERING. Repeating, over and over, in his whispery snarl: _Samaritan._ Whatever the fuck THAT means.

 _That guy,_ Vern's brain repeats, moronically, as he scoops and bags, scoops and bags. _That guy, that guy. That GUY, thing is, he looks...he almost looks, like...shit, spit it OUT, goddamnit..._

(...Beecher.)

_What?_

You heard me. Cupcake.

The very idea, crazy as it sounds--and is--is still enough to bring Vern up short, tongue gone suddenly stone-dead in his dry, dry mouth. Heart-still, as he thinks: _The FUCK you say._

I mean...Beecher, Tobias? Toby-baby? That upscale, kid-killing dipso dipshit Vern'd pragged his first year into Em City, busting--and branding--his pretty blond butt in front of the whole damn quad? That drug-snortin', drag-wearin' little law-boy _bitch?_

(Not too LIKELY, it ain't.)

Tobias Beecher, educated, rich and spineless; Beecher, who Vern'd fucked up and over on a daily basis, browbeat and badgered into a submissive parody of wife-dom--minus the genuine underlying respect he'd always had for Rachel, of course, even at her most infuriating. 'Till the sorry little son of a whore'd finally blown up from the inside out, pressured far beyond his once-"civilized" boundaries, like some special delivery package from the fuckin' Unibomber.

 _Put your eye half-out, knocked you down with a weight, slammed a bench on your neck, and used your face for toilet paper--that's who we're talking about, right? THAT Beecher?_ Yeah, sure. Riiiiight.

Ridiculous. The homeless man is a raving nutjob, a walking flea-circus--looks like an upright chunk of shag carpet, like he's slept under a bridge every night of his life. Nothing like that glasses-wearing, cat-neat, mumbling _pussy_ Beecher, with his clean hands and his soft little desk-job pot-belly--that faint tang of milk-fed goodness to every part of him, from his minty-fresh breath right on down to his tears, his sweat, his sweet, hot spit...

"STOP it," Vern orders himself, firmly, feeling the memory head straight for his crotch--and pauses, flushing slightly, to find he's drawing curious stares from his fellow "workmates". Which he meets with a crushing blanket scowl, projecting pure Oz yard menace from every pore: _You MIND, motherfuckers? Tryin' to have a PRIVATE conversation, here._ And: _Man,_ he thinks, at almost the exact same time, _it has been WAY too long since I got laid._

After that pre-riot gym breakdown of his, the hacks'd dragged Beecher away kicking and biting, yelling his chosen mantra for all within earshot to hear: _Sieg Heil, baby! Sieg fuckin' HEIL!_

Not to the Hole, though; word on the quad was his rich parents'd stepped in, paid off whoever they had to, maybe even bribed ol' Governor Devil himself on their weak wittle baby boy's behalf. So Beecher'd left Oz in a straitjacket, bound for some cushy nuthouse, never to be seen again--and Vern's no psychiatrist, one thing he does know for sure is that it's usually a fuck of a lot harder to get _out_ of one'a those places than it is to get _into_ one, in the first damn place. Which means it's _not_ Beecher, no way, and even if it was--

(which it ain't)

\--so what? Not like _Vern_ cares, anyhow. Not like he has any earthly reason to.

('Course not.)

"Shut the fuck UP," he tells himself, then realizes he's just spoken the words out loud, _again._ But this time, when he glances surreptitiously around, everyone around him already knows better than to meet his eyes.

*** 

Tomorrow, and tomorrow, and tomorrow. Back to Dad's. Back to work. Back home to his empty apartment, a barren room with a mattress on the floor, a cable-less TV in the corner, and all his stuff from Oz crammed into two cardboard boxes by the bathroom door. Lying there awake in front of a screen full of static, looking up at the ceiling and listening to the homeboys outside trawl back and forth with their windows down, blasting duelling rap groups: East Coast, West Coast. Gangsta, New Jack. Back and forth and back and forth and back...

Thinking about what's gonna happen when the Old Man dies--not if, not anymore. When. Thinking: _I am NOT gonna spend the rest of my life trashing shredded paper. Or cutting up meat in some fuckin' family butcher shop, either..._

(...am I?)

Forty-seven years old. Three years away from fifty, a new millennium, a whole half-century spent on earth. And for what? No wife, no kids. No job worthy of that lingering, stringent German Protestant work ethic he still carts around to bury himself inside, pull the earth down over him until the grind becomes his grave. And no _power_ either, for all his strict adherence to his chosen faith; all the legs he's broken and asses he's fucked, over the years to keep the A.B. on top inside, and all for nothing. Not out here in the "real" world, at least, this world of compromise and mongrelization--rules and regs, bullshit and back-biting. "Freedom." And thinking, thinking...about...

...that homeless guy.

*** 

(Beecher?)

*** 

Two weeks later:

"Your boss tells me you phoned in sick to work, last night," P.O. Hamid's disgustingly American-sounding voice says, accusingly, the minute Vern picks up the phone; "Yup," Vern replies, with no particular inflection.

"Care to explain why?"

Mock-patient: "'Cause I was SICK?"

"Just like your father."

Mmm, yeah. _Just_ like that.

A twenty-four-hour leave of absence, game called on account of "flu". Vern spent it leaning in the shadow by his Old Man's back door, staking out the corner. Watching for homeless guy action, after a week and three-quarters of mainly fruitless time spent surreptitiously studying the same area from his father's bedroom window, and finding his initial idle speculations proven beyond a shadow of a doubt:the same drunken wraith, lurching and prowling, accosting passersby between extended acapella solos. Then enticing one guy--cleaner, but equally squirrelly-looking--into an adjacent alley; whispering in his ear, then getting half-forced to his knees before any money even appeared to have changed hands. Selling himself for a bottle to anyone who seems interested, probably too fucked up to even set the same price twice. And Vern, still standing there, still watching. Feeling this instantaneous, entirely inappropriate surge of--what? Sympathy? Disgust? A weird, stab-deep kind of...

(...responsibility?)

'Cause, if it really WAS Beecher, Vern found himself concluding, unable to stop himself, then the little slut was better off with _him._

"I don't really have to tell you the drill, do I, Schillinger?" Hamid asks him. "One free ride, that's all you get. After the first time, I check up--in person. And if I find out you're lying..."

"...it's back to Oz. Right?"

"Bright boy."

Casting his mind back even as he heard it, blocking Hamid's patronizing patter out with a sudden flood of memory. That one time when some stupid-ass Spic newbie who didn't know--or wouldn't _learn_ \--the fuckin' score kept following Beecher around, and Vern spent a week or so with one eye kept always on his investment, waiting for El Moron to make his move. It was just after the talent show, as Vern recalled, with Beecher parading around in full dragged-up prag mode, hair frosted, lips a downturned scarlet bow; not exactly Vern's favorite look, on anybody, but he had to admit he enjoyed the larger overall effect. That sweet misery halo keeping Beecher's eyes meekly lashed, his smart mouth leashed for fuckin' once, too embarrassed and depressed to say much more than the absolute minimum: _Yes, sir. No, sir. Yes, sir._

(Sir, yes, sir!)

Eventually, Vern'd ducked under the stairwell to find the guy all over Beecher, who wasn't doing much to hold him off--just kind of batting at him, vaguely and ineffectually, as cholo-boy tried to peel his pants down. Muttering, while he did: _C'mon, bonita, be real easy, mammi--jus' gimme a little of that good stuff I keep hearin' 'bout, you pinche wedo maricon..._

 _Gotta teach you to value yourself a little more, you dumb cunt,_ Vern remembers thinking, annoyed by Beecher's martyred air of resignation. _You belong to ME, remember?_ With Beecher panting, blue eyes wide, pupils dilated. Obviously telling himself the old, old story, a self-hypnotic litany of denial: I'm not really here. This isn't really happening--not to me. Not _again._

(Again and again, baby. But not with THIS fuckwad.)

So Vern'd wrenched El Moron off, briskly, then rabbit-punched him down and laid the boots to him, face-first. Broke his jaw with one good stomp. Then turned back to check Beecher out, rough but expert--for damage, devaluation. Giving him that intimate grin, and rumbling: _Don't say I never did nothin' for you, sweetpea._ And Beecher, just looking at him--not high, not drunk, just...tired. Too much so to care about the consequences of loose speech as he snapped back, cat-quick: _Like that was really about ME._

Back in the here and now, meanwhile, Vern forces himself to keep his tone calm, level. Telling Hamid, with exaggerated care: "I _was_ sick, and now I'm not. So I'll be goin' to work, tonight--right after I go see my Dad."

"You're such a model son, Schillinger."

Vern bares his teeth, glad his phone doesn't have a view-screen. And replies: "Oh, I try."

Never got to go the whole interventional nine yards with Jan or Cory, exactly, but he's fairly familiar with the procedure--and no white man should have to live this way, slave to an addiction: Booze, drugs, whatever. Not even an uppity, over-educated born whore like Beecher. Not even after what he did to Vern's eye, his rep, his good goddamn name, in Oz and out. Not even if he...

(...wants to.)

 _If_ he wants to.

If he's really even Beecher.

*** 

And later that same afternoon, when Vern comes up his father's stairs one last time...he finds the Old Man sprawled headlong across the kitchen threshold, dead as a fuckin' doornail. Then sits down, back against the wall, staring at the corpse. Thinking, numbly: _Well._

Ain't THIS a dream come true.

At "home," in his own place, Vern's subject to spot-checks from P.O. Hamid, unable to keep any secrets that won't pass literal inspection. But here, as long as he keeps paying the bills and meeting the old Man's rent--here, in this place of weird comfort, this refuge full of remembered pain, familiar as a stroked scab--

Methodically, he rolls Karl Senior in extra sheets of insulation from the attic, duct-tapes garbage bags on top then takes the bundled body downstairs, hiding it away in what used to be the shop's freezer. Through a half-exposed section of the papered-over front window, Vern watches "Beecher" jig and taunt tourists; he looks thinner, sicker, stranger. A little more crazy, every time Vern sees him. Weather'll turn, soon enough. Fall into winter, snow on the ground under those bare, thin feet. And: How did things get so far, so fast, exactly? From idea--to impulse--to action...

 _Must be the trauma talking,_ Vern concludes. He takes a deep breath, flavored with dust and old grease. Thirty years of meat crammed into one small space, smell laid on top of smell like an olfactory fingerprint. Already, he's making lists in his head, item by careful item. Tools, for the job ahead.

\--A three-foot bike-chain, with a clear rubber casing and a big, sturdy lock.  
\--Handcuffs--talk to Charlie, that nigger fuck, and don't let him screw you on the price, either.  
\--Extra sheets. Extra food. Extra fluid: Water, orange juice, Gatorade.  
\--Extra--duct-tape.

So...what is it you're planning to _do_ with all this, Vernon? He hears the voice in the back of his mind ask, half-interested, half-scared. Much the same way HE feels, right now...or would if he allowed himself to analyze it, which he doesn't. Thinking, instead, in reply: _Whatever I want. WHOever...._

Eyes burning from no sleep, a lifetime's worth of unshed tears and way too much time spent watching, wondering, wearing himself to a thin red thread over whether or not that weirdo out there is the living ghost of his former jailhouse bitch. Knowing full well that this whole dilemma could be solved for good just by getting said nut-job up into the old Man's bedroom, by fair means or foul, so Vern can tie him to the radiator and pull his ragged pants down undisturbed--peel the drawers off his butt if he's actually wearing any, so Vern can check to see if he's got a certain National Socialist symbol crudely tattooed where the sun don't shine. The swastika, Vern's mark of ownership, done with a ballpoint pen and lighter on their very first night alone together.

If he's got it, Beecher. If not--somebody else. But either way.

 _I AM gonna be a Samaritan, this one time,_ Vern thinks. _Gonna do one more useful thing before I give up on life outside entirely, and get myself thrown back in where I belong. And I AM gonna save you, whoever the fuck you are--from the street, from the booze. From yourself. Whether you want me to, or..._

(...not.)


	2. Chapter 2

"How that date go, anyway?" Charlie Cutter calls out, from down the hall, just as Vern Schillinger turns his vacuum off. Snapping in reply, as he does: "That _what?_ "

Charlie pops his head back out. "Yo' DATE, Moby Dick. One you bought all that e-quip-ment off me for?"

And: Oh. Yeah. _That_ date.

"Man's just out the jug, he can't even remember settin' up to get some pussy." Charlie continues, shaking his head, like _pitiful, ain't it?_ "So--y'all get yo' wick dipped, or what?"

"Well..."

(...not yet.)

But: "Look," he asks Charlie, slowly. "I was, uh, wondering..."

"Well, wonder no mo', Moby. Go on ahead, I's ALL ears."

 _LOVE to, you wanna let me get a word in edgewise every once in a while,_ Vern thinks, flushing with annoyance. _You motormouth coon cock-knocker._

"Call me Moby one more time, nigger," he growls, "and you're gonna find this vacuum harpooned so far up your ass, you'll be able to suck _and_ blow at the same fuckin' time."

Charlie just snorts, unimpressed: "You an' what lynch mob, Adolf?"

Vern draws a calming breath--then raises his voice, into the roar of Charlie's own machine. " _Look,_ " he repeats. "Just say I...know somebody needs to get rid of a bunch'a--dreadlocks."

The vacuum dies again; Charlie turns, brows hiking. "Take it we ain't talkin' _black_ hair here, right?" A pause. "Well, I ask Rolanda--half her clientele gots jungle fever, so she pretty good with all that fishbelly Fly Girl shit. Prob'ly cost you a whole lot less'n the cuffs did, I can tell you that." Observing, slyly, as Vern gives a grudging nod: "You just _full_ of surprises these days, Adolf, baby. For a crazy old Nazi motherfucker."  


_Sure got THAT right,_ Vern's forced to admit, if only to himself. Casting his mind back to...

*** 

...yesterday, outside his Old Man's shop, the not exactly patented Schillinger one-man, ground-level amateur detox initiative all set up and ready to roll: supplies bought, space prepared, plan (such as it is) firmly in place. Scoop that homeless guy off the street, so fast he doesn't have time to fight back; whack him if he does, hard enough to put him--and KEEP him--down. Then tie him up, dry him out; figure out, with one simple move, if he really even is Tobias Beecher--the post-Oz, post-pragdom, post-raving mental breakdown and year-long drunken binge version--or not.

But catching "Beecher"'s attention soon proves a little more difficult than anticipated, mainly 'cause he hasn't got any. Vern's finally reduced to waving, calling out: "Hey... _you!_ " At the sound, "Beecher" turns; Vern, standing by the shop's back door again, shrugs his jacket open. Shows him the bottle. Sees those glazed blue eyes squint, then sharpen. Thinking: _That's right, keep a-comin'. Heeeere, nut-job, nut-job, nut-job..._

'Cause: I mean, it's what you said you wanted, right? The other day? That meandering little song, accompanied by an upturned, dirt-grey palm. That hissed and enigmatic word.

_Sa--MA--ritan._

Pretty educated turn of phrase, for a guy whose "normal" daily routine, from what Vern's observed, seems to involve panhandling, prostituting himself, drinking 'till he blacks out and crashing in dumpsters.

"Beecher" stares back, desire-caught, but street-trained animal-wary. Jogs up and down in place for a moment, a hesitant little shuffle, weighing his options. And Vern just stands there and smiles, benignly--straining to keep his own face calm, unthreatening, enticingly paternal--toying with the bottle, making it flash. Like: _C'mon now, I look like a serial killer to you? Forget the demographics; just a friendly dude lookin' to give some booze away, so come get some, 'fore I throw it in the trash._

Watching "Beecher" watch him do it, meanwhile, automatically touching the very tip of his tongue to his cracked, discolored upper lip as he does--a pink, weirdly clean little slice of flesh, under that gross scruff of beard. And projecting, at the same time: _You want this, baby? Gonna have to come a little closer, if ya do..._

(You and your _stench._ )

Crab-scuttling across the intersection towards the shop, now, borne on a slab-thick wave of something truly rank: old sweat, alcohol of every possible variety. Vern adjusts his coat-collar, wrapping it high enough to mask almost everything but his eyes, and makes a conscious effort to start breathing through his mouth. "Beecher" gets about three feet from Vern, then stops, almost within grabbing distance. Pauses, with his feral gaze still on the bottle, still glued to it, like nothing else matters--skipping over Vern entirely, like he's just some vague, phantom distraction. Clears his throat. And asks, raspily, giving his filth-stiff mane a jerk toward the bottle: "Fuh--me?"

"Yup."

"Beecher" nods, slightly. To himself: "Huh." Then shapes a disquieting little half-smile, lowering his head and looking up at Vern through his lashes, those odd, pure, ghost-pale eyes gone abruptly mock-sultry under knit brows the color of a muddied wheat-field. Tobias Beecher's eyes, maybe, or _like_ 'em, at the very least. SO like, Vern can feel the weight of it hit him right in his crotch, stink and all--hard and fast and intimate, a red-hot hammer-blow to his most vulnerable spot.

But: That...is NOT...what this is all about. Is it.

(Well-- _is_ it?)

Vern grimaces slightly, not exactly sure what he's feeling, let alone how he feels about feeling it. As "Beecher" warns him, meanwhile, subtle as the proverbial heart attack: "I _don'_ fuck. 'Kay?"

_Jesus! Way YOU smell? No friggin' loss._

Vern simply shrugs, allowing himself apparently more than amenable to a simple, unhygenic blowjob-for-booze exchange. And steps back, nudging the shop's door open with his hip. "In here," he tells "Beecher," to which "Beecher" puts his head down again, broken teeth bared: Yeah, _right._

"Don'...think so."

"Hey, I ain't gonna argue. We do it in here, or no dice."

An impasse. "Beecher" looks at the door, then the bottle. Narrows his eyes further, like he's trying to kick-start the fume-soaked mass that used to be his brain. Licks his lip. Then--does it all again.

The door. The bottle. The door.

That _tongue._

 _Make up your so-called MIND, freak,_ Vern thinks, impatiently. _Before I have to make it up for you._

"Dunno," "Beecher" mutters, half to himself. To which Vern throws back: "Whatever, buddy; not like I got all day to talk this over. Your choice..."

\--oh, and with the _word_ halfway down his throat before he can catch himself; already breaking between his teeth before he can even hope to bite down on it, mangle it literally beyond recognition--

"...sweetpea."

Ohhhhh, boy.

As "Beecher"--shit, guess it really must _be_ Beecher, after all--his eyes flick up, bottle forgotten, to fix on Vern's and flare like twin gas-jets. Recognitive bomb-blast, ground zero. A steam-hot geyser of long-buried pain, shame, hatred all suddenly released at once, distilled, by sheer force of pressure, into three utterly clear...utterly _cold_...words.

"I--know--YOU."

Well, crap.

( _Definitely_ time for Plan B.)

Which involves--Vern lunging. Beecher recoiling, hissing, up against the doorpost; whapping himself hard, snarling a curse, spitting blood. And Vern, since he's momentarily unable to think of any better response, just--hauling off and slugging him, right in the jaw. Beecher folds, pole-axed with a single punch: not a lot of stamina left over for  hand-to-hand combat, these street people. Vern glances around, surreptitiously, scanning for witnesses. Spots none. So he squats, swiftly--gets Beecher under the armpits, nearly gagging on the close-quarters rush of stink--and hoists him inside, locking the door behind them.

And looking down at his catch's slack, pungent body, laying where it sprawls, he thinks: _'Course it's Beecher, 'course it always was. That pushed-in little nose, that mingy college-boy mouth...who the hell else could it have been? Checking his ASS is gonna be nothin' but an afterthought._

(Not that he's _not_ gonna do it, even so)

That familiar sight, a swift mnemonic crotch-tug: Beecher, at his feet. All--limp.

And: "Man," Vern rumbles, aloud, at the same time. "You always were...easy."

*** 

Now, hours later--home from work and poking around in the Old Man's kitchen, grilling himself up some bacon and cheese sandwiches while the tomato soup heats on a back burner, Vern keeps a watchful eye on Beecher's back as he sleeps face-down like a dog, drooling into the Old Man's pillows, clawing and moaning intermittently at whatever phantoms share his nightmares. Naked, too, under a freshly-laundered sheet; Vern had to cut that skanky suit of his away like a husk, using a pair of deboning shears, revealing the print of layer upon layer of dirt like several thin suits of muck. Along with those too-sharp hips, those too-many ribs...those dingy, night-dweller-white limbs, still lightly furred in (very) dull gilt...

Not to mention, when Vern finally kneed Beecher gingerly over--half-expecting vermin to swarm from his creases, like bugs from beneath a rock--that mark, _his_ mark. Right where he left it.

(My...property.)

Vern finishes searing both sides of yet another sandwich, sets it aside to drain with the others, then finds his eyes drawn back to the dim curve of Beecher's shoulders, the knobby trail of his spine. And hears that voice in the back of his mind whisper from somewhere deep down near the medulla oblongata, the brain's most primitive part: _Remember how you used to treat him, way back when? When he was...all yours?_

Stroke him, mock him-- _play_ with him, like he was food. Like when a bear eviscerates its prey, clean its insides out with one good rip, then half-buries what's left and only comes back when it's gone soft. Hoist him up in mid-thrust, from behind, and feel Beecher's arms come out at angles, awkwardly defensive as a burned corpse's; like if he just held himself stiff enough, _still_ enough, he could ward off penetration, even in the midst of the dirty deed itself. And half-hearing, half-feeling that steady whine, that wimpy murmur, too heart-sick and dick-whipped to even raise his voice: _Oh please, don't, please, stop, please--_

_Don't stop? You got it, cupcake._

(Anything to oblige.)

_Sir, please. PLEASE._

That magic word, so useless. So CIVILIZED. While Vern just grinned and hugged him closer, spread him wider. Musing, contentedly: _Aw, baby. You really do beg so nice._

 _Yeah, well_ , Vern thinks now, equally defensive. _LET me, didn't he? Weak little bitch._

(Like you'd really wanna touch him, anyways, the shape he's in--even WITH a ten-foot pole.)

And: _Oh, you SAY that, Vernon,_ the voice replies. _But what about later on? When he starts looking like he did, smelling like he did? That same prissy, pussy, pansy-ass fragrance, like he's been dry-cleaned all over, or something..._

The old Beecher, pre- _and_ post-Vern--he wouldn't've lasted five minutes on the street, let alone however long THIS version's been out there. And look at him now: All claws and teeth and stink, a feral animal tease. Wouldn't be able to get _this_ Beecher to lie quiet for a swastika on the butt, choking back tears; this one, Vern can somehow tell--this one doesn't beg, "beggar" or not. Not for _Change,_ and not for anything else, either.

Still hates his own guts, though, obviously; enough so to dive back into the bottle headfirst, and not come up for air. Slow, enabler-assisted suicide; every American's right to choose their own method of self-destruction, 'specially back in Oz. _But not in MY house,_ Vern decides, grimly. _Not MY--_

(Your _what,_ exactly?)

Vern turns away, snorting, to move and lid the soup--then hears a clang from the other room, followed by an inquisitive grunt of pain and surprise: Beecher, jerking awake, disoriented, bound wrists lodged uncomfortably above his head.

"--tha' _fuh--?_ "

(Rise 'n' shine, Tinkerbell.)

Sandwich in hand, Vern leans back against the doorway, chewing. Watches Beecher try to jack-knife himself into a sitting position, then realize, slowly, that he's been bike-chained to the radiator behind what used to be Karl Senior's bed, with barely enough slack to let him gain his knees, let alone his feet. Frowning. Bringing his cuffed hands around to touch his lip, split from Vern's blow; tasting blood, and frowning again. Brows--knitting.

_See?_ Vern thinks, encouragingly. _Rough it out, TOby, step by step. 'Cause I bet you CAN connect the dots like a normal human being, you just wanna try._

Guess it's now--or never.

So: Vern clears his throat. And Beecher, merely on hearing his voice-- _recognizing_ it, instinctively, even without the benefit of actual words--whips 'round with his back up tight against the radiator's coils, ragged-nailed fingers already clawed in anticipation of attack; crazed eyes wide, gone blue-rimmed black. And gives an appalled, scarily vacant sort of shriek, more like a startled crow's caw than any human sound. Gasping, then _snarling,_ in turn: "Schillin. Grrr."

_Hey...got it RIGHT, for once._

"That's me." Offering him the food: "Want some?"

Beecher just stares. Then whispers, almost under his breath--

"...mother... _fucker..._ "

Vern smirks, feeling himself slip straight back into their established pattern; that warm thrum, silk over bile, nastily jocular. "Huh," he says, blithely. "That any way to talk to the guy got you off the street? Ain't exactly been taking care of yourself out there, swee--"

"Yooouuuu _motherFUCKERRRRRR!_ "

From a whisper to a full-on _howl,_ revving twenty to eighty miles per on a residential street, no helmet and no warning: so loud, so unexpectedly startling, that Vern actually finds himself in an instinctive footballer's crouch, poised to tackle. His grilled cheese hits the floor, forgotten, as Beecher leaps HARD, then jerks up short--strains against the bike chain like a pit-bull on a bad leash, caterwauling loud enough to wake the neighbors, a living air-raid siren. _Not_ frightened, at all, not as such...just desperate to break free, reach Vern, rip his fuckin' HEART out.

Thrashing, spitting, squalling. Frothing at the filthy mouth.

"Beecher--" Vern starts. Then finding himself entirely ignored, switches to a full-on roar: " _BEECHER!_ "

Beecher pauses, panting; Vern too, his own teeth bared. A dog-eat-dog standoff, suddenly big-balled beta to ultra-amazed alpha. And--

"Sir," Beecher replies, at last, cold as dry ice. While Vern thinks: _Oh, no. Nooo, no, no._

(That is _not_ what I meant. At all.)

Aw, screw it.

"I _said,_ " he begins, again, voice scratching slightly, "you want some of this food, or what?" To which Beecher simply coughs, own voice gone hoarse, before managing, with effort: "Fuh--fuck yuh."

"Something to drink. A _bath._ "

"Said, fuck YOU, ya Nazi fuck."

"Well, you're havin' one anyway--gonna be here a while, and you really fuckin' stink."

Beecher narrows his eyes. "...while?" he repeats, skeptically, like he might've forgotten what that means.

"'Till you dry out."

And at this, Beecher-- _goggles,_ frankly. Like: dry OUT, here? Tied to this _wall?_ I mean who're you supposed to be, now, Vernon--Oz's own answer to Betty fuckin' Ford?

"You...gonna take CARE. Uh me."

"Yup."

" _Why?_ "

A question to which Vern, uncomfortably enough, can currently conjure no entirely--satisfactory--answer. "So," he says, finally, choosing to ignore the issue. "Bath first, or food?" Adding, sharply, as Beecher's eyes flare again: "Hey. I am trying to be NICE here, you--"

( _fuckin' prag_ )

A twisted smile, lips crooked slantwise. And Beecher, purring back: "Suuure you are. _Sir._ "

"...Vern."

Another pop-eyed double-take. "'SCUSE me?"

Vern grits his teeth. Thinking: _Well, let's face facts--if charity was easy, everybody'd be doin' it._ "You WANT," he repeats, loud enough to be (hopefully) pretty much un-misinterpretable, "you...can call me Vern." Adding again, after a moment: "Toby."

The pause holds, lengthens--stretches perilously close to some kind of indefinite snapping point, as Beecher swallows, soothing his parched vocal cords. Then opens his mouth, unexpectedly wide, and starts to laugh: an ill, shrill giggle, arcing steadily upwards--a shrieking, echoing bray, contempt mixed with pain mixed with utter incomprehension, (more than) half-insane. And it just goes on and on and _on,_ ever louder and ever more out of control, until...Vern, goaded beyond his narrow limits, brings it all to a halt with two simple words.

"Shut UP!"

And Beecher falls silent again.

Falling back on old (bad) habits, then, barking orders; retaking control, one single-syllable directive at a time: "Up. Hands." Vern unlocks the chain, using it like a lead, half-pulling Beecher up and over to the bathroom door; kicks it open, continuing, adding a second or third word here and there: "In y'go. No bullshit. And use _soap._ "

As he relocks the chain to the shower-curtain rail, meanwhile, their shoulders accidentally brush and Beecher recoils, snarling: "You fuckin' TOUCH me--"

(And _what,_ exactly?)

Caught off-guard, his patience exhausted, Vern feels himself jerk hard again at the very thought--a painful pulse, dark and deep. Turns on Beecher, looming large as his extra bulk will let him; tells him, scarily quiet with that "normal" threatening rumble FULLY back in place: "Don't get your skinny alkie ass in there, right damn now...and I _will_ touch you, Bitch-er, BELIEVE me. _Alllll_ over."

And...you don't want _that._ Do ya?

Thought not.

A minute later, Vern's back in the kitchen, pouring tomato soup to the sound of running water. Crumbling crackers and poring over the long-lost vagaries of the Schillinger family code of conduct, osmotically learned--as much by experience as by example--long before Vern ever hit the yard at Leeman Juvie, Oz, Lardner, Oz. Grossvater and -mutter's old country wisdom, vs. Karl Senior's drinking, whoring, beatin' on Mom like a Goddamn drum for every reason he could think up, but none in particular.

The unspoken rules. You protect women, but not whores; protect your wife and kids, long as they don't talk back, act up, question in any way, shape or form your God-given authority as head of the sacred family unit. Follow the American Way, just like (Nietzsche's) Superman, and protect the weak...poor people, old people, animals...unless they also happen to be niggers, Spics, slants, Wops, Micks, Jews, FAGGOTS, that is...

In a world this complex, this essentially corrupt, only simplicity--purity--brings peace. You gotta parse things out, know exactly what you're dealing with. Know your purpose, your chosen Cause. Your standards. 'Cause if you don't know those, then how can you ever really be sure you know...anything? At all?

(Can't.)

When he was inside, these rules'd been suspended--temporarily, he'd told himself, at the time--in favor of basic prison etiquette; front hard, take what you want and keep what's yours, stand up for your kind and never back down. Get on top, and _stay_ there, by any means necessary. But now that he's back in the world, no longer having to worry about getting shanked for seeming weak, he might actually be able to...possibly...indulge himself. Do something genuinely unselfish, for genuinely unselfish reasons; invest his time, strength, money in someone who really needs it--really needs _him--_

Jan. Cory. Rachel, even. Or so he'd hoped.

\--and _not_ because he expects to get anything in return. Even if his only fall-back position, in that respect, is Tobias fucking Beecher.

The water-sound trails off, becomes an intermittent drip. From the bathroom, Beecher's dry voice issues: "Ready." Vern scoops up a load of clean clothes, already laid out--old workout stuff, mainly: Socks, a too-big t-shirt, a pair of drawstring shorts. "You brush your teeth?" he calls.

"Yeah, DAD."

From murderous to snide, in just under an hour; soundin' more like the Beecher Vern remembers by the second. Maybe this whole freaky-ass project'll be simpler than he thought. And in the back of his head, that voice again; an unseen narrator, facelessly familiar. Half-observing, half-predicting, with God's own sarcastic insight--

( _Sure_ it will.)


	3. Chapter 3

"Haven't been around much lately, have you, Schillinger?" Parole Officer Hamid asks, from where he sits oh-so-comfortably ensconced in the sole kitchen chair of Vern's "real" apartnent. "I mean, sure, you turn up for scheduled appointments--" ( _Thus robbing you of yet one more opportunity to bust my big Aryan ass back to Oz,_ Vern thinks) "--but whenever I do a drive-by just on my own recognizance, no matter the time of day, you're never here. Care to tell me what gives?"

Vern just shrugs, and keeps on twiddling the knobs on his crappy-ass TV, flipping from station to static-choked station in search of something other than Oprah, or that equally hefty Mick bitch who spends her whole show promoting an endless string of pansy/Jew Broadway musicals. Snapping it off, finally with an annoyed huff, and rumbling back: "My _Dad--_ "

"...is sick, yes, I actually got that part the first time you used it as an excuse." A pause. "This the same Dad you threw down the stairs, back when you were nineteen?"

(Christ Jesus.)

Vern casts a cold blue eye back at Hamid--goddamn arrogant, all-"American" dune coon desk jockey hack. Kinda guy who's got that moral ruler of his shoved so far up his chute, it's a wonder he don't spit shit; kinda guy goes through somebody's file, counts their tattoos, measures the growth of hair on the back of their fuckin' scalp and thinks he knows 'em inside-out. Who reads about how Vern treated poor li'l Tobias Beecher, back on the mean, plexiglass-walled streets of Em City, and gets all misty...even though all his prayer-rug bitin' relatives probably wanted him to get his university degree--sociology? Criminology? Law?--tattooed on _his_ butt, so he could moon it at any asshole who asked to see his credentials.

Besides which: _This is the U.S. of A., Sheik,_ he thinks. _How many Dads you think I GOT?_ Replying out loud, instead: "What can I say? That...was then."

(And where I GO, outside of when you tell me I gotta turn up _here,_ is frankly none of your fuckin' business.)

But this, as Vern well knows, having already bluffed his way past a parole board crammed with people just as anally self-righteous as Hamid himself, is never how you want to play it. Unless you want somebody grilling you on a daily basis, that is, always on hand to poke your life with a stick and see what crawls out.

He can see Hamid watching him now, carefully, turning over possibilities. Has Vern been consorting with other ex-cons, known felons, or indulging in any of the other pastimes--drink, drugs, crime, gun ownership--that could automatically overturn his parole, sending him back to do the rest of his sentence? Is this perpetually ill father figure of his just a ruse, a cover for stuff he's too secretive or ashamed to want some uppity Arab like Hamid let in on? Is he, could he be...in _love?_

Vern snorts at the thought--then muffles it behind his hand, turning it into a fairly convincing cough halfway through. Momentarily, an image of what might happen if Hamid's attention ever became so fully engaged that he couldn't go back to his late father's place at all... _ever_...intrudes, jump-cut fast: a scratchy flash of Beecher's starved, rotten corpse, sprawled out on Karl Senior's former bed, still chained to the radiator.

(Yecch.)

Three weeks, as of yesterday, since Vern first tempted his former prag in off the street with the promise of (nearly) free booze, then punched him out and dragged him upstairs to start his very own one-person alcohol-addiction intervention. And since then, Beecher's cringed from every touch, however brusque or businesslike, refusing to speak unless barked at; just crouches sulkily in the bed's farthest corner and follows Vern's every move with his eyes, staring through his tangle of overgrown bangs like a cat caught in a thicket. More blue than pupil showing, now, but still not exactly trusting enough to do much more than pick away at his meals, half-finicky and half-feral, all those pretty college-boy manners of his _long_ gone; shredding his sandwiches with both hands, slurping his tomato soup straight from the bowl and then licking it clean with that...tongue of his.

With Vern trying to trim those broken nails, cut those claws on his feet, soak his head in that de-dreadlocking gunk Charlie Cutter sold him--and Beecher, fighting him at every turn. Snarling: " _I'll_ do it. I'll DO it. Fuck, I'll fuckin' do it myself, _Vernon!_ "

_Well, then just fuckin' well go ahead and do it, already, TOBY, you ungrateful goddamn...bitch._

He can't afford to think of Beecher like that, though; not anymore. Not right now. 'Cause that's just _asking_ for trouble.

Only as he's gotten progressively sicker, shaking and sweating from DT fits that leave him too limp to argue, has Beecher slowly started allowing more and more physical contact, finally letting Vern feed him, strip and reclothe him, even bathe him (though not everywhere). Come, however gradually, to accept it... _expect_ it, even.

Lying there, languid, between bouts. Dependent on Vern in a way nobody's been for years; not since Rachel ran off. Not since--Beecher himself, once upon a time. In Oz.

All of the power, and all of the responsibility. Be so...easy to abuse it.

('Cept I _don't._ )

Even though you could.

( _DON'T._ )

...could.

Still, c'mon: pretty hard to feel anything but a certain abstract--pity, Vern guesses--what with Beecher over the toilet every five minutes, hurling long and loud. Jonesing hard, sick as a dog, vomiting 'till there's nothing left in his stomach but bile, spit, foul-smelling air. And Vern left holding back his hair, struggling to keep on making that comforting mental connection between Beecher and Cory, who went through a phase 'round when he was four, or maybe six, where he always seemed to be pukin' over something or other every five minutes. To see him as a sick child, a sick _animal,_ all pretence at social superiority stripped away by the blistering heat of his own addiction: fractious, messy, pissy, desperate. Surfacing, eventually (as the gag reflex slacks off, temporarily deadened by overuse), to grate: "'M sick. Need--"

"No booze."

"'M _sick,_ goddamnit. Yuh goddamn, Nazi...ME-fucker."

"And whose fault is that?" Vern snaps back, unsympathetic. While Beecher just stares back at him, gaze dull with loathing. Replying, inevitably: " _Yours._ "

Yeah. Right.

 _Like I was the one put the first drink in your hand, you fuckin' lush,_ Vern thinks, teeth gritting. _Like I was the one made you screw your job, your wife and kids, your LIFE. Like I was the one steered you at that kid, all liquored up and still too arrogant to stop yourself from gettin' behind the wheel. Like I was the one sent you to Oz, to..._

(me)

Actually trying to make him feel _bad_ about it, little bastard. Which is just so, so damn--unFAIR.

 _I mean, wanting to look after somebody, not wanting to see them hurt themselves more'n they absolutely have to, to do unto friggin' others, for Christ's sweet sake--that's a _good_ impulse, right? Isn't it? Well...ISN't it?_

And here comes Rachel's voice as counterpoint, right on cue, chiming in from where it always lurks at the back of his own half-fevered brain; so cool, so distant. Pointing out, with typical pleasure: _Not if you have to make sure the other person always stays weak and broken, Vern--needing help, needing fixing--just so you can keep on doing it. And feeling oh-so-GOOD about doing it, you big old...Samaritan, you._

But: _I protected you 'cause I LOVED you,_ he thinks back, fiercely. _Like I love my boys, my Brotherhood, my race. Do unto others, right? Do as you would be done by; give tit for tat, lit and fig. I protect you, and you...pay me. For the privilege._

Ah, but: that doesn't actually sound all that much like _love,_ Vernon. Sounds more like--extortion.

(Like so many other things.)

Then again, though, that always was the root of their problems, wasn't it? The plain and simple fact that for Vern, according to her, being "nice" always revolved around ownership: MY sons, MY wife, MY rep, MY property. MY being nice to YOU, 'cause you're damn well _mine,_ goddamn it!

Well, fuck--you _were._ Back then.

Internal debate sliding straight to far more recent memory, then, scarily fluid. Beecher, sniping at him like always, even through a mouthful of mush: "You find me, you get ta keep me, that how it works? 'Cause you already _own_ me."

To which Vern could only reply, turning on him: "LOOK, asshole. Have I actually made you-- _do_ anything?"

Balefully: "Not yet."

"Just...keep quiet, then. 'Fore I--"

"Ohhh, gonna threaten me again? 'Cause that's how it goes down in _real_ detox, I bet'cha--shape up, or get FELT up."

Vern sighs, suddenly tired beyond belief. "You got to where you can joke about it, you really must be feelin' better," he offers. And: " _No,_ " Beecher hisses back, flat cat-face gone all white and wet with fresh nausea. "I am NOT."

Reeling along as Vern puppets him gingerly back to bed, still using that bike-chain and cuffs restraint system he rigged up on Day One as a kind of a leash, careful not to get too close. Which is just good sense, really: stoned, after all, this wreck once nearly put Vern's eye out; sober, he knocked him prone and took a crap on his face.

"I'm helpin' you," Vern tells him, decisively. Adding, as he presses Beecher back down with a palm on his skinny chest: "Sure can't help _yourself,_ from what I saw." To which Beecher simply curls up, hugging himself, moaning thinly--his dry sandpaper voice still somehow managing to drip with sarcasm--

"Aw, gee. _Thanks,_ ever so."

In the real world, meanwhile, Hamid clears his throat, apparently bored with waiting for Vern to elaborate. "Schillinger. You still with us, or what?"

Vern straightens, turns. Growling: "We 'bout done here?"

"When I say we're done, yes."

"Your call, boss." Vern gives him a shark's fixed, narrow grin. "'Course, I don't show up for work, gonna get pretty hard for me to comply with the terms of my release...unless that's how you _want_ it, maybe."

They look at each other, for a long moment: Hamid, no doubt caught on the ragged cusp of blurting out just how much Vern disgusts him, not to mention how far he'd be willing to bend his own code, just to make sure his neat-'n'-orderly little city didn't have to include any big, bald cracker mother-humper walking around with black S.S. lightning-bolts on his arms, or a big Third Reich eagle on his chest. And Vern, just standing there with his arms folded, expressionlessly waiting--unafraid, unashamed, simply being himself. Musing silently, as he does: _So I'm repulsive, huh, Officer Raghead? Well...you already know what I think about YOU._

"I'm getting out of here," Hamid says, finally. "You should too, you don't want to lose your job."

Not _quite_ able to make it sound like an order. And: "Whatever you say," Vern replies, equitably.

(...cupcake.)

*** 

Dinner that night is pizza, picked up after Vern gets off-shift at Meteorscan and reheated in the Old Man's oven. Vern slides Beecher's over with one booted foot, only to have it ignored; ungrateful little prick keeps on lyin' there like a lump, sweat-slick and trembling with his eyes rolled back to thin blue slits, cast up in the general direction of the ceiling.

So: "Beecher," Vern rumbles, through a mouthful of crust. No reply. A little louder: " _Beecher._ "

"...yuh..."

"Been wonderin' something, maybe you could enlighten me, given you're not busy otherwise. How _did_ you get out'a that high-tone loony bin they slung you in, anyway?"

Beecher lets his head fall to one side, giving Vern a narrow, horizontal glare. And answers, forcing himself into what seems like a careful parody of lucidity: "I...told them what they wanted. Just like I used to do with _you._ "

"That easy, huh?" Vern takes another bite, chewing. "Then what?"

Beecher sighs, noisily. "They sen' me back tuh my parents. Gimme...drugs."

"Bet _that_ really helped."

The prone version of a shrug, full-body, supremely uninterested.

"You had a wife, though," Vern reminds him. "Kids. What happened there?"

"...kihself," Beecher mumbles, making Vern frown. "Say again?" he demands.

"My _wife._ She. KILLED. Herself." Continuing into the silence, as Vern pauses to absorb this news: "Kids're with the grandparents--hers, not mine. Don' want 'em anywhere near _me._ 'Cause 'm not...fit."

(Yeah, not for MUCH, you're not.)

Vern considers Beecher, briefly, getting a scarily moment's rush of the man he used to be laid on top of this wasted shell, the freak, like some sick "before and after" photo exhibit: the neat, clean, street-stupid Ghost of Toby Past, with his spotless shirt and his gold-rimmed specs, drifting around loose for anyone to snag. His smell alone enough to put every other predator on the quad instantly on point. _But I got there first,_ Vern finds himself thinking, weirdly proud. _Didn't I, sweet cheeks?_

Like shooting fish in a fuckin' barrel, THAT little coup. So easy it hardly seemed worth the effort, at the time.

Taking stock of what's left over, baffled and a bit--is that _sad_ he's feeling, really? For Beecher? Until at last he's finally driven to comment, voice full of a sort of wonder: "Jesus. Really did a goddamn number on yourself, didn't you? ToBIas."

Beecher squirms, spits. Says, hoarse: "Look who's...talking."

Vern flushes, mouth twisting. Snaps: "Fuck you mean by _that?_ ", to which Beecher, unmoved and unmoving, simply shrugs again. "You an' me," is all he says, by way of return. "In Oz. You 'member?"

Like: Em City. Your pod. How I went in versus how I came out, and...everything in between. _'Member,_ Vernon?

Vern's flush spreads, deepens. As he replies, perhaps bit too quickly: "Maybe I was tryin' to teach you something, ever think of that?" And Beecher just nods--oh yeah, _that_ 's likely--before suggesting, sweetly: "How to bend over."

"How to be a _man,_ you mean."

Another nod. "Mmm-hmmm, instant macho, jus' add...water. An' wear lipstick. An' suck your dick."

(Man. Same world, another fuckin' planet.)

Vern exhales, slowly; clenches his fists, and carefully turns his back, exercising the sort of restraint Beecher apparently never got caught to display, whenever things get tense. The same restraint he's honor-bound to keep on displaying no matter what, whether or not Beecher ever becomes capable of understanding just _how_ restrained he's actually been being, all this time.

"I mean, are you actually thinking you did me some sort of _favour,_ back then?" Beecher continues, unaware of any of this. "Is _that_ how you tell yourself this story? Because here's what really happened, if you're confused: you _fucked_ me. And you did keep other people from fucking me too, yes...but only so you could _keep on_ fucking me. That's it, pretty much; that's all. The whole kit and kaboodle."

Well, when you put it _that_ way...

And what's worse? Vern's annoyed to find himself wondering, vaguely. That you DID it to him, at all, or that--he didn't really _mean_ much of anything to you, when you did? That he was just a--toy, a receptacle, some kind of human cum-rag: whip it out, use it up, then throw what's left away...

From behind him, now, Beecher's voice, breaking yet once again. Reminding him: "'Sides which--I AM a man, _sir._ Always was." Followed by the punchline, left unspoken, for all its sheer predictability: So...

...what's that make YOU, exactly?

*** 

Later, outstretched in his Dad's La-Z-Boy, Vern finds momentary escape in dreams of Rachel--part by part, fully and painfully familiar: Those wry, smiling lips, those deft little hands. She straddles him, so close he can taste her Tequila-fume breath, then traps his tongue between her teeth and hikes her skirt; slides down onto him without preamble, atypically dry yet oh-so-typically tight and hot. He feels her nipples dent his palms, senses rather than sees her pupils dilate and fix beneath the blank flash of her lenses, as a blush lights her pale skin from cleavage to hairline. Humps up into her with all the deferred desire of seven years apart and feels his heart swell with love and murder, hammering against his ribcage like a  clock set for Doomsday...some bomb long-buried, now unearthed--un-defused--and just about to burst. In the dream, he looks up to catch her hovering on the edge of climax, her dull gold mane hanging wild around them both. And thinks, without slowing, with impeccable dream-logic--the kind that connects the dots your waking mind has always been far too preoccupied to connect by itself, but gives no particular emphasis to any one piece of the puzzle-- _boy, does she ever look like Beecher, from this angle._

Which is bad enough, in and of itself. What's worse, however, is that he knows what he really means is: BOY, but Beecher looks like _Rachel,_ and always did.

(Kind of funny how you never really noticed that before, though. Isn't it?)

Coming awake all at once, rigid and leaking, shaken and aching. His head still full of images, flipping back and forth: Rachel, Beecher; Beecher, Rachel. Beecher... _as_ Rachel, and vice versa.

 _Just can't believe I never SAW it,_ Vern tells himself, embarrassed by his own amazement. _So damn obvious--that snub nose, the hair, the glasses. Not to mention the goddamn DRINKING._

Well, but why would you, though? The voice in his head asks, impatiently. Hadn't seen her in...how long? And then you're in Oz, and Beecher's a--guy, and all--

( _Fuck._ )

Vern catapults upright, searching 'round wildly for something to distract himself with, scalp fairly crawling--a hooked-on medley of tangled emotions, too confused to sort but far too uncomfortable to stand. Then steps sideways, stumbles into the bed and recoils, too slow to cue Beecher's answering murmur, which sets his mind working feverishly on a barrage of prospective damage control scenarios: Don't second-guess yourself, just clear your damn head, 'fore you do something _really_ dumb. Hit the bathroom, be quiet and quick; whole thing'll be over in under five minutes. Or--

\--take it over there, while you're still thinking straight, and stick it where it really belongs. In Beecher. 'Cause that's what he's _there_ for, right? _Right?_

 _Wrong._ Wrong, wrong, wrong, OH so very fuckin' wrong...

Twisting like he's hung in a high wind, unable to pick a direction. And hearing Beecher mumble, as he pushes himself into a half-crouch with his chain rattling, thumbing the sleep from his eyes: "Need'a pee, lemme past. Lemme..."

Barking: "You just HOLD it a damn minute."

"Said I need'a _pee,_ Vernon. 'Less you want me doin' it all over your--"

But Vern's already on the bathroom's threshold, throwing back: "And I said fuckin' _hold_ it, you freak!" Adding, through the crack in the door: "Piss that bed, by the way, you WILL lie in it all day; don't test me, 'cause I ain't jokin'."

"Rapist asshole," Beecher mutters, under his breath. But sinks back as the door slams, hugging himself; clutching the chain's lock in both cuffed hands, for comfort, like some hard steel teddy-bear. While Vern, safe behind a locked door, thinks--

_Oh, sweetpea. If you only knew._

*** 

On some level, though, Vern could almost swear Beecher does. Catches him sniffing the air like some mongrel dog, like he's tracking the trail of Vern's growing arousal; tuned to it somehow. A frequency only the two of them share broadcast rights to--him, and Beecher. And Rachel too, probably.

(Ugh.)

Days he spends at the old homestead, trying to look enough like an occupant to keep Hamid off his back; nights at Meteorscan, marking off time 'till he can punch back out and go change Beecher's bucket. Listening to Charlie Cutter chatter on, and on, and ON as the two of them hump load after load of shred-basket leavings out to the parking lot for the recycling trucks to pick up, while simultaneously nursing the worst case of blue balls since last night, and the night before that. Not to mention the night before _that..._

These non-stop dreams of Rachel, so scarily immediate, compared and contrasted with the lure of Beecher--crazy as he is, hard as he'd fight if Vern ever tried it. Beecher, already tied down, ever more pliant with illness.

Pressure, building and nowhere to drain it off, aside from--the obvious. Which Vern will _not_ do, damnit. Not if--

(he can help it)

*** 

Sometimes, on (very) rare occasions, it occurs to Vern that he's gotten away with quite a lot in life: beat-downs and blindsides, pragging prey, ordering take-outs, cutting his own little pureblood swathe through this mongrelized world he's trapped in. He's always worked, always made enough money to provide, never drank, never polluted himself with drugs, never fucked around. Snagged himself a blonde, blue-eyed college girl like Rachel Renton to share his bed and bear his boys, solely on the basis of an attraction both of them found all but impossible to justify or explain, even to each other. With barely a complete high-school education, he's pulled himself clear of the Old Man's hereditary morass and redirected his own destiny down paths Karl Schillinger Snr. wouldn't've taken on a dare--been able, through sheer force of will, to organize a position of power for himself almost everywhere he's ended up, inside or out. Taught himself how to read people, good as any Jew shrink--better, sometimes. As Beecher could certainly testify, were he so inclined.

If there's one single thing Vern's long and varied life experience has proven, however, it's that what you really obsess over are the things you _don't_ get away with. Brothers missing in action, sisters run away, mothers bleeding out in your arms as the ambulance siren keens; lifting your father by his worthless fucking throat and hurling him down so hard you can hear his ribs crack. Then ending up in Oz, for all your trouble...the _first_ time. First, but by no means the last.

He remembers his decision to ally himself with the Aryan Brotherhood in order to survive 'till parole, followed by a gradual drifting movement from just parroting the party line to almost halfway believing it himself, only re-confirmed after he discovered his tats and his record had basically discredited him with everyone but the kind of scum and idiots he'd thought he was going to leave back in the yard on release. Working double shifts for ten years plus down at the Post Office, only to see his due promotions go to somebody less qualified who just happened to be some more politically convenient color. And then, after all that, to see his smart, sexy, formerly rich bitch wife run off with a nigger--leave him _for_ a nigger, with two kids, a job that didn't pay enough to keep from involving the Old Man in his business, and an ill-banked fire in his blood that never seems to cool, even now. Not even when it eventually reached the boiling point, exploding in a barely-planned, uncharacteristically stupid orgy of violence: that dealer, _his boys,_ the tire iron.

Followed by Oz, yet again. Oz, opening its arms wide, folding him in.

Victories? Vern's forgotten his share. Year on year of A.B. plotting and counter-plotting, the various rebellions he's stifled and "demonstrations" he's supervised--preaching to the converted, getting his back scratched and his will done, all the fake-jocular pack leader posturing and street-level mind-game manipulation. Couldn't name a good seventy percent of the guys he'd tricked into becoming his bitch before Beecher came along, 'cept maybe that natural-born slut Christopher Keller, up at Lardner...but then again, ol' Chris always was the kinda guy who left an impression, one way or another. Christ knows what he's doing these days, aside from any given thing unlucky enough to cross his skanky path.

Victories pass through, briefly enjoyed, rarely retained--but defeats, they rankle, for good. Maybe forever.

Signals misread, mistakes made and compounded. Your chosen plaything turns on you, too unexpectedly to stop--turns in your hand like some broken tool and slashes you to the bone, a "pet" gone rabid, biting deep. Your cornea scratched, your eyelid left scarred and drooping, and that _smell,_ that TASTE. Public humiliation cut with private hatred; memory like an endless curse, replaying the whole thing over and over, no matter how far away it all gets. Dull rage in your chest, choking you like heart-worm, gathering behind your tongue, a poison you can never puke out.

And behind it all, the most immediate target? Beecher, still stuck working through his own litany of defeats after a lifetime spent getting off easy: out on the street, dancing and snarling in his dirt-stiff suit, trying his level best to drink himself to death over that little girl he squashed, plus the fallout from his time inside. Trying to blunt the pain of finding out he wasn't quite so civilized, after all--not when push came to shove.

Beecher, who Vern owned, and fucked, and lost, like Rachel. Beecher, who looks--just LIKE Rachel. Who Vern still has doped up and tied down right now, upstairs at the Old Man's, his protective shell of scum all boiled away: feral, but at least lucid enough to fear Vern again, whenever he thinks hard about it--most 'specially, Vern has to assume, since he can probably already see what Vern's _really_ thinking of underneath this whole...Samaritan...routine of his. Staring up with those wide, blue eyes and finally starting to smell, well-- _good,_ damnit. Just like Vern knew he eventually would.

A sort of sleepy baby-scent seeping up from beneath the lingering bile-stink, now his DT fits are getting further and further apart. Even the sweated-out booze after-tang clinging to his skin is beginning to seem medicinal, like a cleaned wound.

(Upstairs. Right now.)

_God, just shut the fuck UP, brain. Who asked you, anyhow?_

But: _Fact is,_ Vern reminds himself, with as much calm logic as he can muster, _fact IS, you're not gonna do shit about Beecher--not "right now" and not later, either. Not even with him restrained, not even with YOU (supposedly) on top. 'Cause when it comes to Tobias Beecher, my friend, you have a bad fuckin' history of not getting away with anything._

He's smarter than that, in other words. Isn't he?

Brave words. Good advice. So Vern takes it, for a few more days, at least. And then--

*** 

\--it's a week later, Vern standing in his Dad's apartment doorway with a grocery bag in either hand and honest-to-God gawking at the sight of Beecher snagged tight in his own harness, one hand swollen bruisy-purple from hours of maneuvering and tugging--of straining to somehow work his scraped and bleeding fingers free, while his thumb bends ever closer towards potential dislocation. Staring, mouth sprung open with equal parts shock and bemusement, while Beecher just sits there sullen, lower lip provokingly puffed: exhausted, in pain, yet utterly unrepentant. And snaps back, before Vern even gets a chance to react: "So what did you _think_ I was gonna do, just sit here waiting for you to work out how it's okay for you to fuck me? _Those_ days are _over,_ Vernon."

Wow. So very nice to see you too... _counsellor._

Vern shuts the door, slowly. Put down his groceries, and rumbles, his voice gone dangerously deep: "Should just leave you there, 'till your fuckin' hand drops off. Ungrateful little..."

"Oh, _please._ You knocked me out, chained me up. Fucking _kidnapped_ me."

A half-huff, half-snort. "PEOPLE get kidnapped, cupcake. What I did to you? That was more like--garbage collection."

"Yeah? Well, we'll just see what the courts have to say about--"

To which Vern narrows his eyes. Replying, as he does: "Will we, now."

The two of them lock glares, pale blue to even paler--a classic Oz eyefuck, cut with an (un)healthy dose of growing realization: escape attempt in _progress,_ Toby, not complete. Not yet. On the strength of which insight, Vern watches Beecher make a visible effort to claw his way upright, ignore his wounds--breathe out, quietly, through his nose--and change the subject.

"Well...I'm okay, now," he says. "Okay? I'm clean. Sober. Which means you got what I guess you thought you wanted, yes? So...you can just let me go."

"Yeah, uh huh; 'go' straight down to the corner, and blow some guy for a bottle."

"Oh, that's right. 'Cause you'd rather I blow YOU, given the choice, when it comes down to it."

It's an easy barb, but Vern flushes, equal parts annoyed and caught, like a worm on a hook; shit, now there's an image. Caught, stuck through, transfixed, and _twisting._ But scoffing openly nevertheless, at the same time; lowering his head as though about to charge, and growling: "Like I'd wanna put my pipe anywhere near your scum-hole, you fuckin' Yuppie fleabag."

"No? Well, that's good," Beecher shoots back, toneless. "Considering if you _ever_ try that again...I'll bite it off."

He snaps his discoloured teeth together neatly, for punctuation, a wickedly sharp CLICK; bridgework still strong enough to maim, even in decay's earliest stages. And: _Shit,_ Vern thinks, surprised, _little bitch might actually DO it._ Which is more than warning enough to put his burning groin on hold a moment or two, 'till he can take a cautious stride towards Beecher, who stands his ground. Begin by lowering his tone, keeping it gentle, as he replies: "Listen, Bee...Toby. You been on the street for 'bout, what, a year?"

"You gonna undo these cuffs, or not?"

"I could--might, you behave. Gonna try and run?"

Another exhalation. Beecher considers Vern, hovering bulky between him and the door, before glancing back down at his own half-maimed hand. The door, the hand. Vern.

Finally: "'Long as you don't try anything?"

(Like WHAT, exactly?)

"I won't," Vern promises, with his best wary prag-soothing smile--probably a miscalculation on his part, sadly, seeing how it makes Beecher shudder. But half-effective all the same, since the next words out of the little bastard's mouth, strained though they may sound, are: "Then...no."

So Vern nods, rummaging in his pocket for the key. Then sidles a bit closer, frees Beecher's hand--drawing a muffled groan--and continues.

"All's I'm saying, ToBIas--took maybe a year to get where you were when I found you, right? _Right?_ "

"...basically, yes."

"Okay, then. But take you off the sauce for three weeks straight, and look at you now--back where you were when you started, with no harm done." A beat. "Sorta."

Now it's Beecher's turn to snort, hugging his wounded arm to himself. And reply, sardonic: "Not as such."

"You're still a young guy," Vern tells him. "The drinking, the drugs...it's all reversible, you just have a little--"

Sweetly: "--discipline?"

Well, yeah. "You got a DISEASE, that's all," Vern claims, not that he really knows. "Treat it, it gets better. But if you just _leave_ it, way you were already doin'..."

Beecher's eyes flare. "You think any of this shit is news to me? I'm a drunk, Schillinger. I was a drunk a fuck of a long time before we ever met."

"And you knew it, huh, even back then?" A pause. "Didn't stop you runnin' over that little girl, though, did it?"

And: "NO," Beecher hisses, bruised fingers clenching, trying to form claws. "It did not."

Vern feels his own bad temper rising, equally automatic, to the challenge. "So what was it you were _doin'_ out there, then, dumb-ass?" he barks. "One hitch in Oz not enough? Or did you just wanna _kill_ your--"

But here he stops short as Beecher chuckles nastily, turning his hand in Vern's direction, palm up--wrist up--to display the pinky-white scar tissue seam where his watch should be. Drawling, glacier-cold: "Wrong again, Vern. _This_ is what happens when I want to KILL myself."

Some party-trick, that one; a real potential conversation-stopper. But its effectiveness gets more than slightly defused when Vern just stares back, pointing out: "Yeah...you fuck it up, from what I can see. Just like the fuckin' little spoiled alkie brat you are."

Beecher's face convulses, sharply; goaded beyond his current limits, he gives another of those eerily inhuman little shrieks of his, and slaps at Vern with his wounded hand before he can think better of it. While Vern simply catches the punch mid-move, contemptuously easy, and fists it _hard_ \--squeezes down as he twists, so deliberately painfully that Beecher's glazed eyes practically bug from their sockets. And: "Wanna _play,_ Bitch-er, that it?" Vern asks, overtop the additional noise. "How ya like this for a dance-move, partner?"  


" _Leggo,_ leh-fucking- _GO--_ "

But Vern just keeps on squeezing. "Naw, don't think so," is all he says, forcing Beecher down onto one knee, steadily--coughing snot and helpless, agonized tears, all the more humiliated by his own uncontrollable reaction, as Vern feels that well-remembered, satisfactory rush, sparking from bicep to crotch like a corrupt electrical current. Thinking, at the same time: _Not so smart NOW, huh, cupcake? Someone's sure holdin' you in the palm of their hand, all right, and it ain't GOD, either..._

The struggle goes on until Beecher breaks at last, bent almost double now but still defiant--all red in the face like Jan used to get when the bad tantrums hit, deprived of toys, TV, his miscegenating cunt of a Mommy. Yet still screaming up at Vern, nevertheless: "Fuck YOU, you fuckin' FUCK, if I wanna end my WORTHLESS FUCKING LIFE, I WILL--I'm free, white and over twenty-one, I'm a free fuckin' _MAN,_ Vern-baby! _YOU DON'T OWN ME..._ "

(not anymore)

And Vern, pausing, lit from within. Knowing the truth of Beecher's words, deep in his own gut--but holding on, anyways. _Tight._

"...and just what the fuck do YOU know about living with an addiction, ANYWAY?" Beecher yells on, undeterred. "You CLEAN-living, ASS-fucking, PURE Aryan _HYPOCRITE?_ "

 _What do I know...what do I KNOW?_ Vern thinks, amazed. _You're askin' ME what I know about DRUNKS? Ohhhh, you fuckin', fuckin'...FUCKIN', little..._

Time for a much-needed object lesson, obviously. Using Beecher's trapped hand like a lever, Vern whips his prisoner 'round and wedges his shoulder under Beecher's free arm, shifting his primary grip to the short hair at the nape of Beecher's neck and propelling him up, forward, onto his feet--holding the flailing, spitting former lawyer safely away from his own torso, firmly pinned but slightly distanced, same way a veterinarian carries an angry cat. Pulls him bodily back towards the apartment door-- _heave,_ spin, _heave_ again--and kicking it open, then dragging him headlong down the steps into Karl Senior's former shop, bumpitty bumpitty bump. Whirls to sight the freezer, digging his nails into the scruff of Beecher's neck and _throwing_ him like some human football pass, face-first, into the huge steel door--

Beecher bounces up once more, lip split, only to collapse back with both hands to his nose, sputtering a wet string of curses as Vern steps over him to wrench the freezer door open with a piercing squeal of half-rusted hinges. He reaches inside, grabbing for one end of a long, dark green plastic-wrapped cylinder and hauls it out, letting it sprawl practically on top of Toby-baby--then holds him down with a knee to the small of the back as he tears through layers of garbage bag and duct tape, through the bright pink insulation beneath, to reveal the real surprise at the centre of this treat--the Old Man's waxen face, all yellow-green and bloodless white, mummy-desiccated from a month in its airtight tomb: room was built to keep meat from spoiling, after all, refrigeration or no refrigeration.

Beecher gasps and recoils from the sight, gratifyingly shocked. Cries out again, as Vern slips one arm across his throat from behind, forcing him to stay put--and the world's best move that ain't, exactly, now Vern comes to think. Considering how he can already feel himself jerk and swell against Beecher's squirming body, resisting the growing urge to rub to completion...

Fuck it all, though, anyhow. Fuck _him._

"This is what I KNOW, ToBIas," Vern hisses, in his ear. "So take a look, a nice, _close_ gander, 'cause this is what a man who drank himself to death looks like; took my whole goddamn life, but he finally fuckin' did it. And one day? One day...THAT is gonna be YOU."  


"--nuh, it's nuh--"

" _Yuh,_ you betcha. Like the smell?"

"--uh, nuh, NUH--"

(...maybe not.)

Stink of slow-rotting flesh in both their nostrils, strong as some (dead) animal's spoor. Beecher spasms, trapped in Vern's embrace, desperately trying to propel himself away from that livid profile: a stranger's corpse, made hideously familiar by all those teasingly recognizable Schillinger characteristics. Vern's leonine nose, blurred with broken veins; Vern's grim mouth, dew-lapped with decades' worth of wrinkles; those staring eyes, once pale blue, now cataract-milky under faint grey brows. While Vern himself, half-enraged with his own arousal, keeps on cutting off Beecher's remaining air--crushing him further towards his Dad's shed husk, like he's going to rub Beecher's face in it, or something. Tough love from hell, the ultimate aversion therapy. Ordering, as he does--

"C'mon, you cunt, take a good look, a good long look--a good, long, _close_ fucking LOOK!"

" _NNNNNUUUUUUUUUHHH--_ "

One last, frantic jerk, spine arched and locked like a bow, and Beecher's eyes roll roof-ward; he lets go, goes slack, blacks out. Leaving Vern with an arm-full of unconscious "patient" and a bad taste in his mouth which has almost nothing to do with his dead father's smell, everything to do with that voice at the back of his skull--Rachel's, naturally--which whispers, sadly: _Well, you really showed him, huh? Really taught HIM a thing or two. You big ol'..._

But: "Don't," Vern tells her, aloud. "Don't even say it."

(Heard enough of that stupid word to last me a fuckin' lifetime, thank you very much.)

Looking back down, catching the Old Man's fixed, fish-like eye, his rictused mouth, stretched in what almost looks like a grin. "Fuck _you_ lookin' at?" Vern rumbles at him, well aware it's a ridiculous question. Then shoves his Dad back inside, slamming the freezer door, and turns for the stairs, one careful, overloaded step at a time.

Taking Beecher with him.


	4. Chapter 4

Hamid's last warning notwithstanding, Vern calls in sick to work and spends the evening getting Beecher bandaged, tied back down and cleaned back up--turns out the freak shit his shorts somewhere during the whole process, which makes Vern more than a little queasy: _Man, I was practically dry-humping his diaper-needin' ass!_ Beecher, meanwhile, stays sunken deep inside himself, too far gone to even whimper and scrabble through his normal nightmares. He lies there comatose, so silent Vern finds himself periodically pausing to check his chest's shallow rise and fall, the dim, throbbing pulse at his throat's curve.

Around one in the morning, though, that all changes. Vern's in the kitchen, thumbing his way through a tabloid, when he hears that same chain-on-radiator clang, and thinks: _Well, hell. SOMEBODY's awake._

Takes his time getting out there, putting a bit of a swing in his stroll, prepared to enjoy a fine little ego-boosting smirk at Beecher's expense. But Beecher, annoyingly enough, isn't even looking in his direction--just staring fixedly at a point somewhere near the room's lefthand corner, his eyes so wide both blue orbs seem rimmed with white.

"Hey, Tobe," Vern calls out, affably. "Sleep well?"

But: "Keep her away from me," Beecher whispers back, gaze still on the corner. Not in reply, so much, as--entreaty? Vern even catches himself sneaking a brief glance in the same direction, and snorts at his own gullibility: Nothing. Nothing at all.

(As though there WOULD be, for Christ's sweet sake.)

"Keep who, exactly?"

Beecher gulps, scratchily. " _Her,_ " he repeats.

Impatient: "WHO?"

But Beecher's not listening. Just gives a squeak instead, comically high, and plasters himself back against the radiator as though trying to avoid the approach of something which, frankly, seems to scare (what's left of) the unholy _crap_ right out of him. He pants and strains, worrying at his cuffs. Tearing at the bike chain with his splinted fingers, oblivious to how much doing so must hurt, and all the while mumbling, grunting, pleading with--who? Vern? Himself?

(God?)

"No," Beecher whines, in a pleasingly familiar stark terror. "Please, no, I'm sorry--I didn't, couldn't, I tried, I _tried_ to--Christ, I'm _sorry._ Christ, PLEASE--"

"Beecher, stop that shit," Vern orders him. "Right the hell now."

"--PLEASE, _PLEASE,_ I'm SORRY, I _SWEAR--_ "

"Right _now,_ Bee--"

He's cut off halfway through, though, by a moaning howl of absolute horror: Beecher, flailing and spasming again like a man having an epileptic seizure. Wailing outright, as he does: " _DON'T LET HER TOUCH ME, PLEEEEASE--_ "

Vern makes it to the bed in two quick strides and grabs on, wrapping Beecher close as all his strength can get him in a modified clutch, half bear-hug, half fireman's carry. Presses a hand on either temple, trying to hold Beecher's wildly whipping head steady, and discovers the son of a bitch is seriously burning up with fever: Hallucinating, probably. And still babbling, even now: "SORRY, I couldn't SEE you, I TRIED to stop, I _TRIED..._ "

Oh, and okay: the kid, _that_ 's what he thinking of. That girl, one he ploughed into, juiced outta his Harvard-educated mind on a week-night...what the fuck was her name, anyways? Karen, Katie--

"Kathy Rockwell," Vern says, aloud. Feeling Beecher shudder at the sound, twist in his arms to bury his face in Vern's wide bull-neck, all cold sweat and hot breath. Whispering again, his voice gone hoarse from shouting: "--touch me, she wants to, Daddy, _please--_ "

(don't let her)

Feels the words spoken so close Vern can't tell if that accompanying moisture's from his tongue, or his words' condensation. So close it's like he's under Vern's skin, thrumming, building sound by sound. Like the thumping, irregular beat of Vern's own heart.

"Don't let her," Beecher murmurs aloud, and lets out a long, slow breath--relaxes, going slack again, all over. Folding himself into Vern like a tired child. While Vern just sits frozen, taken completely aback. Thinking: _This is a joke, right? Some kind'a plan? Direct approach didn't work, so he fakes a breakdown? Gonna trick me somehow, get me all...whatever, then crack me over the head and take my keys, stick a pillow over my face and PUSH..._

Sighing into his collarbone, now; so soft. So apparently _trusting._ And oh, God, the FEEL of him, Tobias Beecher--that freak, that bitch, that junkie Yuppie whore, curled up close enough that Vern can hear his pulse through that old workout shirt he threw him, using Vern like some kind of human fuckin' teddy bear; a source of comfort, a shelter from fear, not the exact damn opposite. Acting, for all the world, as though he actually _wants_ to be there, with him; as though none of what...happened between them...ever even did.

 _Because he thinks he's somewhere else,_ that voice contradicts him, gently. _Somewhere else, with someONE else. Not you, Vernon. Never you._

(Never.)

 _Like I'd WANT him to want that,_ Vern's brain scoffs at the suggestion, automatically. To which the voice replies, coolly: _Well, you'll never know what that might've been like NOW, I guess. Will you?_

The hot, snuggled weight of him, so weirdly soothing-sweet--a bit like holding Rachel in the morning before the alarm goes off, but more like holding Jan after he's squalled himself into exhaustion, or Cory after he's gone limp during a juvenile asthma attack. Except, of course, for the fact that Vern never got a damn hard-on doing either of those good services, let alone one _so_ hard it currently seems to be sucking every last drop of blood from his aching, straining, edge-of-similarly-feverish brain. The kind that leaves him unable to think anything but a single, incoherent word, over and over and over: _Mine. MINE. Mine, mine, mine, mine mine..._

And now, almost as if somehow able to hear it, Beecher stirs, slightly. Burrows into Vern's shoulder, sighing right into his twitching jawline: "...I just couldn't _see_ her..."

Myopic blue eyes staring up at him under heavy lids, regarding him with a kind of stoned grace, the sort of beatific forgiveness Beecher would rather spit on Vern than offer, he wasn't too damn fucked up right now to even know who Vern IS. As all the while, the pain in Vern's pants keeps on getting steadily worse, fly zipper printing like a sharp new vein along his rigid, ticking length. Looking down and shaking his head as he hugs the little crazy bastard all the harder, stroking that wet, dull gold hair, 'till he finally gets himself together enough to order him: "C'mon, shush, Bee--Toby. Go back to sleep, now. Go 'sleep."

Lulled, Beecher seems to nod slightly, like he's giving his permission. So Vern eases him back down into the bed's twisted nest of sheets, shrugging the counterpane around them both so he can fold Beecher carefully in, an idea Beecher doesn't appear to object to at all; throws one leg up over Vern's as he does and worms an arm underneath him, hugging him close, so he can use Vern's still-thumping chest for a pillow. Which only makes it easier for Vern, in turn, to slide a free hand surreptitiously down in between them and pop his own top button, freeing himself stealthily, one tiny set of zipper-teeth at a time. And: _Oh, hell no,_ that interior voice says, startled. _You're not really gonna--_

Start rocking back and forth, infinitely gentle, thus performing the double trick of keeping Beecher comforted yet avoiding a possible cerebral haemorrhage by rubbing himself off, surreptitiously, against the less-sturdy-than-remembered fold of Beecher's hip? Why, I believe the answer to that particular question would be _hell_ yes.

Doing his level best not to let himself think about it, but thinking all the same, nevertheless: _Mine, for me. For ME. All for me..._

By the end, Beecher's snoring openly, hot wet mouth sealed against the unshaven side of Vern's chin, their lips almost touching. As Vern moans, breathless, struggling to keep his movements slow, small, light--until--

(Good Jesus! All for me, me, _me..._ )

\--he spurts at last, red-hot and lava-thick, hissing through his nose; sprays them both with a sticky load of seed, gluing them tight together. Aftershocks blaze like sheet lightning up and down his body as he grapples Beecher closer yet, holding him fast, the world's most tangled combination of kid, wife, pet, prag. And promising him while he does, weirdly fierce: "Nobody's ever gonna hurt you again, Tobias, not 'f I have something to say about it. Nobody..."

(...but me.)

*** 

"You _did_ something to me, while I was out," Beecher accuses him the next morning, staring at Vern like he hopes his gaze hurts from under an overhung fall of bangs, infinitely sullen. "Didn't you?" To which Vern just snaps: "Like what?", only to hear Beecher answer, vague to the point of annoyance: "Like... _something._ "

"Need to be a little more specific, cupcake, you really want me to try and answer that," Vern shoots back, more for the pleasure of watching Beecher's face twist than anything else. Because: "No I don't," is all Beecher can muster to mutter in reply, turning away.

It's eleven or thereabouts, the morning after Beecher's big breakdown: first official day of winter, grey sky edging into dirty white between lowering clumps of clouds. Three hours since Vern woke with a crick in his back from sleeping upright, stiff-muscled but deliciously refreshed, with Beecher still dead asleep in his arms and drooling against the side of Vern's shirt-collar. Which felt nice, enough so he actually caught himself thinking, just for a fleeting, futile second: _Be sorta...cool if we could stay like this, huh, Toby? I mean...just for a bit._

"Mmmph," Beecher seemed to agree, at the time, tucking his ruffled gold head into the soft spot beneath Vern's jaw--and Vern felt himself stir again, reflexively, wanting to groan aloud at the way his traitorous genitals sparked and flared at that unconscious touch.

Around them, the whole apartment was stuffy with stale sweat boiling off of them both, plus the not-exactly-stink of Beecher's post-sickness musk--a pungent morass, smotheringly hot and close, enough to raise the hair (what there is of it) on the back of Vern's neck. Every limb slack, as if he was cooking in some weird fuckin' soup of possessive arousal, liberally spiced with an unmanly, unmannING kind of tenderness. It's the same thing Vern almost always feels, looking at Beecher: His trapped catch, half-broken and half-unbreakable; his former toy turned charitable project, better every damn day, yet (predictably) ungrateful as ever.

Watching Beecher doze, contracted blond brows twitching with dreams, arms wrapped tight around that sturdy, slow-breathing body. And still feeling this strident _need_ to stroke him all over 'till he got a response like a weakness running through him, his very own personal fever, infuriating as its source. It set Vern trembling like some teased dog shown a whole bag full of juicy bones; made him want to grind his back teeth, fist his hands 'till his knuckles crack-- _do_ something, anything, before he lost what was left of his mind. Anything but what he most wanted to.

Instead, however, he gave himself over to practicality: peeled himself gingerly free by degrees, laid Beecher back to rest in that rucked cradle of sheets and backed off, tucking himself briskly away. Spent a few more minutes spent holed up in the bathroom, trying ineffectively to sponge last night's excess from his clothing with a wet facecloth before finally giving up, stripping off and stalking naked to the hallway closet. Warning himself even as he did to not look back, if he knew what was good for him...

(for EITHER of them)

But pausing, of course, hand on the closet door, caught in mid-push. Already doing it anyways.

The teasingly familiar sight of Beecher lying there, gold-furred legs out-flung in (holy living fuck!) _invitation,_ or something--

 _HEEL, boy,_ Vern told himself, sternly. Yet wanting far too fiercely to deny even to himself, with every possible fibre of his being, to just flip Beecher over again, lay himself down between his ex-prag's spread knees and go to town: kiss him hard and deep, 'till those dazed blue eyes came back open; watch him stiffen and jerk awake, ready to fight, only to pin him by the wrists and laugh in his horrified face, cracking his thighs even wider. To crush that Yuppie whore into Karl Senior's mattress with all his prison-bred bulk of muscle and flab alike, give way to his instincts and force himself inside full-length with no time for spit, cramming himself into the sweet, tight heat he still remembers so well and _pumping_ 'till the blood flowed like lube.

The internal debate raging back and forth, halo-bearing little angel Vern on one lightning-bolted shoulder, horny little jack-booted Nazi devil Vern on the other. Like: _C'mon, go ahead and do it--he wants you to, you KNOW he does, no matter what he says, or thinks. Freak doesn't really know WHAT he wants, never did..._

But: _No, he damn well doesn't; don't be dumb, for Christ's sake. You're more'n a little old to let your dick steer you around, like some fuckin' hormone-drunk teenager. Have some pride--_

(--Old Man.)

'Cause now his Dad's dead, that _would_ be him, Vern guesses. And ain't THAT a disgusting thought; better than a pitcher of ice-water to the crotch, any damn day.

Which brings us, in turn, to a few brief minutes back: Beecher surfacing, slowly--groaning--as Vern worked a fresh, non-cum-stained t-shirt over his head. Peering up, eyes sulky blue slits under sleep-heavy gilt lashes, and grumbling: "My...hand hurts."

Vern pulled the shirt back down briskly, suggesting: "Better take some of these, then." Then tapped out a few Tylenol from the bottle and passed them over, as Beecher responded, grudgingly--

"...thanks."

Must have done _something_ wrong, though. Let their fingers brush as he dropped the pills in Beecher's palm, or paid a little too much attention as Beecher gulped them down; studied him sidelong, too proprietary to be entirely trustworthy. Because even assuming Beecher's fever really did wipe away all lingering memory of last night--what he did while hallucinating, let alone what _Vern_ did--he obviously still knows something must've happened, somehow. Or has his doubts, at the very least.

"Why'd you change my clothes?" Beecher asks, suddenly, in the here and now. Squinting up at him while the little voice chimes in, like a gleeful chorus: _Oh, that'd be 'cause I jerked off on you, sweetpea, while you were asleep and havin' a nightmare. Your fault, really--_

(like always)

Rumbling back both defiantly and out loud, meanwhile, at the same time: "'Cause you crapped your pants like a little girl when I took you downstairs and showed you my Dad?" He busies himself with the breakfast dishes, avoiding Beecher's eyes. "I'd've known you were gonna take on this way, believe me, I wouldn't've bothered--tough love ain't for everybody."

Not even vaguely placated, however, Beecher insists on repeating: "I _know_ you did something, Schillinger, while I was...out. Think I can't tell, by now?" To which Vern groans internally even as his cock gives an uncontrollable jump, jerking half-hard yet once more: _Awwww, you, you--you prickly little uptown SLUT--_

\--and turns, eyes flaring. Barking: "'Kay, great, fine; so what? You think I 'took advantage' of you? I _had,_ you better believe me..."

"I'd know? I know!"

Vern hisses, goaded well beyond the official limits of his patience. Then bends close, looming over Beecher. "You," he begins. "just need to...shut your mouth, all right? Right now. Or I _will_ shut it for you, with--whatever's handy."

(All threats of amateur circumcision notwithstanding.)

The very suggestion's more than enough to make Beecher snarl and bristle, his whole carefully "re-civilized" persona cracking away once more, under pressure, to show the feral street person beneath. But Vern just crosses his arms and bristles right back, unimpressed, feeling uncharacteristically guilty for what he did do but way too defensively pleased with himself about what he _didn't,_ given the chance--flip Beecher over and screw him like an Ikea desk-set, for example. Growling, as he does: "Aw, save the damn theatrics. But then again, maybe you _want_ me to, that it? Given you can't go five minutes without talkin' about it. And after all I've done for you, too, you spoiled rotten little son of a..."

"... _bitch?_ " Beecher suggests, right on cue. And gets in maybe one good eyelash flutter, snarl sliding to smirk, before Vern hits him, WHAP! Right in the kisser. Feels so good he immediately wants to do it again, backhand, then has to exert real self-control in order not to; he stops instead, panting just a bit, to watch Beecher swallow blood as he stares back up, demurely unsurprised, like he's just had a pet theory proven. And comments, drily, after coughing out a wad of pink spit plus what looks like a piece of molar: "Ah, see, now... _that_ 's the Vern I know best."

A statement to which there is, of course, no answer...easy, or not. So Vern turns away instead, eyes anywhere but on that unforgiving, flat blue gaze: CHRIST, it's hot in here. Leans his forehead briefly against the window's cool glass, yearning to wrench it open; let some of that winter breeze from outside in, plus some of this desperate confusion inside him _out._ And recalling, at the same time--with a wistful kind of nostalgia--the days when knowing Beecher hated him worse than poison still gave him a warm little thrill, instead of this dark, slightly...

(hollow)

...feeling.

"Why," he hears himself ask, slowly, "does it always gotta be so fuckin' hard with you, Tobias?" Not waiting for a reply, yet already hearing Beecher's retort in full detail, long before the bastard even has time to voice it: _Oh, you mean why can't I just be a good little cellblock 'ho, SIR? Fawn and flirt and do your chores, dress up pretty and act real nice, assume the position, do what you want and at least pretend to enjoy it? Hang on your every word. Kiss you, without being ordered to first. Offer back-rubs, blow-jobs, tea and fucking sympathy, like we're--MARRIED, or something?_

(Or...something.)

Yeah, that's it, Vern thinks, automatically. But--no. 'Cause, fact is...he's starting to feel like he doesn't even know, anymore, just what it was he ever wanted from Beecher, besides the obvious.

Ahhhh, _shit._

There's a semi-long pause, during which none of the above gets said at all. Until, from down at Vern's feet--where Beecher lies slumped on his side, freshly-bruised face held in both hands--a quiet voice replies: "...dunno."

Huh. And THAT's different.

More silence. The window's temperature rising, steadily, under the smudge left by Vern's brow. And down there, on the street--does he _know_ that car? Is that, could that be...Hamid, staked out and watching the shop, waiting to catch Vern fucking up the exact way he wants him to?

"Just wanna _help_ you, is all," Vern concludes, mainly to himself. Knowing almost immediately that this is the absolute wrong sentiment to voice, at the absolute wrong time--a mere split mili-second before he draws the resultant sharp little sidelong eye-flick, accompanied by this sweet-voiced yet equally cutting reply: "Help me, right. Now...is that help me up the ass, or down the throat?"

_Man. You try to be _nice..._  
_

"Fuckin' psycho," Vern growls; "Fucking Nazi," Beecher snaps back. To which Vern raises a barely-there brow, and rumbles, humorlessly--

"Uh huh, sure. But when're you finally gonna learn I don't consider bein' called that an insult?"

Peering directly out at the car in question, now; squinting hard, and rummaging through his memory. Someone from work? Coon-of-all-trades Charlie Cutter, in that old junker he favors when the van's startin' to look a little bit conspicuous? No. So--  


(-- _who,_ damnit?)

Back on the bed, Beecher's sitting up again. Got that "I went to _Harvard,_ asshole" look on his face, like he's planning a whole damn summation out in his head; used to get it back in Oz now 'n' then, not that Vern couldn't usually knock it out of him fast enough, whenever he did...one way. Or another.

"You wanted me dried out--that's what you said, back when," he starts over, trying hard to keep things civilized-sounding. "I mean...that _was_ the point of this exercise, right?"

"Pretty much."

"Okay, well, like I said, I'm dry. Which makes us done."

"When I SAY we're done, Beecher."

And here his eyes spark back up, dangerously. "Oh yeeaahhh, 'cause you're my lord-and-master savior, right, Vern? Took me in, washed my disgusting beggar feet, anointed me with unguents, all that good shit..."

"Unguh- _what?_ "

"It's from the Bible, dickhead. 'Catholic fairytale crap', like you always used to say." A pause. "'Course, I'm Episcopalian, in actual fact...but I guess a good stormtrooper WASP like you can't really tell the difference, can ya?"

(...maybe not.)

"Anyway..." Beecher looks away, studying the radiator's coils. "Don't get me wrong, okay? I didn't really _like_ being a Looney Tunes piece of street trash, all that much--fucked up on booze, sucking guys off FOR booze. But what am I supposed to be thanking you for, here, exactly? Face it, Vern--your idea of the Twelve-Step Program looks a hell of a lot like being right back in Oz; all those...good, _good_ times we used to have, you and me. Like the first time you ever said 'open wide, baby?' And I couldn't get my lips over my teeth fast enough, so you went down too far, too fast, past my gag reflex...and then you held my nose shut, to make sure I'd have to swallow..." Vern shifts stance, uncomfortably, while Beecher takes a long, ragged breath. And finishes: "...so by the time you finally started to come, I was already choking on my own puke. Remember _that?_ "

Vern shrugs slightly, to which his former property gives a cold, red-tinged smile. Adding, toneless: "Thought so. But then, you always did like it like that--still do, I guess."

Unspoken implication like an anger/arousal two-shot, groin and medulla oblongata both going off at once: liked it so much you had to build yourself your own mini-Oswald, didn't you, even after McManus and company were dumb enough to let you back out into the world--a jury-rigged little pod built for two. You and me, owner and prag, all-Alpha male MAN and jailhouse substitute--

(wife)

"I kept you _safe,_ " Vern points out, as though he's never said it a hundred times before. "Niggers would'a gang-banged your narrow lawyer ass every night, my mark wasn't on it."

Beecher nods. "Mmm-hmmm, yup, certainly true. And then...you just threw me away, at the end of it all, 'mark' or not. Anyhow."

Head down, de-dreadlocked mop of hair hiding his face; hugging himself, shoulders hunched and--trembling? Just a little. Same way he used to sit around during those first few weeks in Em City, that all-important "settling in" period. Like he'd got kicked in the gut a while back, long enough so's it didn't really sting, but couldn't quite get over just how bad it'd actually felt. And: _Well, what are you, hurt?_ Vern thinks, overall flush getting deeper. _Still stewin' over me deciding Scott Ross might be a better bet than some sulky, horse-snortin' stick-up-the-butt who couldn't even pick out a love song to sing me without makin' it into some kinda comment? "I Got It Bad", my big Aryan ass. 'Sides which--that skanky grey motherfucker ended up dead so fast when the riot rolled around, I never even got a chance to try and run my moves on him. So it ain't exactly like he took your place for long..._

_Really wanted to keep my "protection", Toby, then maybe you should'a shown me a little more affection, a little more loyalty, a little more goddamn respect. Not run around with that Mick fuck Ryan O'Reilly behind my back, or rushed off to spill your guts to Spic Sister Peter Marie every five friggin' minutes. Been a bit more...accommodating, generally._

But: That was then, this is now. And--

"I'm not lettin' you go," Vern tells Beecher, firmly. "Not 'till..."

(...I'm done with you. Whatever _that_ eventually turns out to entail.)

He lets the rest of the sentence trail away, uncertain what part of it he really wants to voice. Hearing Beecher complain, meanwhile: "Can't just keep me locked up in here the rest of the fucking winter, goddamnit."

Vern snorts. "Please. What've I _been_ doin', genius? You think anybody's lookin' for you? Think anybody cares--" He shakes his head, teeth gritting; gives a too-loud huff, returning his attention to the street below, that CAR. "Nobody gives a shit where you are but me, Beecher, _or_ what happens to you from now on, either. So you better shape the hell up, and hope I don't..."

But Beecher's not listening, curled up again, his peevish voice muffled by bedclothes once more. Vern can heard him muttering, exhausted, consonants gone slurry: "Kee' me 'safe,' _Christ._ On'y thing I needed to be kep' safe from was YOU, y' bastard. Y' fat, fucking, Nazi...mother _fucker._ "

Oh shit, though: that IS Hamid's car, Vern suddenly knows without a doubt, click of connection like a slap across the mental face. Sees his P.O. sliding into an empty space right beside Charlie Cutter's lunch-break booty-'n'-"booty"mobile as he drops in unexpectedly for a workplace check, something mid-size and foreign but sporting the same baby-shit-yellow paint-job as this one, a U.S. flag decal on prominent display in the front window's left-hand corner. That's him, which means that if he comes up here and sees...all this, Vern will be instantly fucked beyond all possible hope of unfucked-dom: back to Oz, for good, and that's the least of it. The absolute least.

No time to plan ahead, therefore, let alone explain. Just step back, attract Beecher's attention with a light kick to the shoulder, and order: "Gimme your hands." Beecher looks at him, mutinously. " _Hands,_ Beecher," Vern repeats--adding, impatiently: "NOW."

"I won't _run._ "

"Yeah, and I'm Morgan fuckin' Freeman. Give--me--your--HANDS."

There's a struggle, mercifully brief; Vern only has to start to squeeze Beecher's raw right wrist and thumb before he feels the former lawyer go limp, moaning in defeat. He snaps on the cuffs, secures the bike-chain, turns for the apartment door--then throws back, over his shoulder: "Look, I just gotta--check something, won't take long. You'll be fine."

"...broke my fucking _fingers..._ "

"I did NOT." He opens the door and pauses, knowing exactly how stupid this will sound, but completely unable to think of any other way to say it. "Just...I just need you to _trust_ me, 'kay? For fuckin' once. That so much to ask?"

Once more, Beecher casts him a furious glare of despair mixed with disgust before starting to laugh...a weak, rhythmless kind of laughter, more like gasping, or retching. Or, possibly...

...sobbing.

The sound of it follows Vern down the stairs, only trailing away when he passes the freezer door behind which his Old Man's corpse still lies locked, fixed and fallen eyes open to nothing but darkness.

*** 

Almost an hour slips by, with Vern sitting at attention by that one uncovered window-panel in the store-front proper, watching "Hamid's" car. The windshield is covered in a light dusting of early snow, impossible to read; shadows inside, but no movement. Could be him, Vern guesses. But, then again, could be... _any_ fuckin' body.

Those bozos down at Meteorscan have probably fired his ass by now; Vern sure would, in their place. Doesn't necessarily mean they called Hamid, though. Most of their staff is made up of ex-cons, and most've _them_ are dirty, far as Vern can tell--but as long as they show up and book off on time nobody seems to give much of a good goddamn what else goes on, whether on site, or off.

A mnemonic snapshot, in and out, flicker-fast: Charlie Cutter, giving Vern the first day tour--like Em City's bullshit "rules" rap, 'cept without Guard Whittlesey's bony rack to look at. "Yo, man, y'all jus' outta stir? Where you gots all that ink, right, them funky swas-tee-kas? You one bad mother, for sure. 'Course, drop all our records on one nigga's head, stone crush the mothafucka flat--y'all know what I'm sayin', Adolf, baby?"

While Vern just studied him silently, like some exotic variety of bug: something he'd never seen before, and hoped--devoutly--to never have to see again. But knowing, with a sure, sick certainty, that experience would prove that hope a lie.

Almost two-thirty, and the car still hasn't budged. Vern checks his watch, gives it five more minutes, then takes the stairs two at a time. Unlocks the door again, and opens it, whistling cheerfully, onto what's gotta be the worst reek he's smelled since using Karl Senior as an instructional aid: Something burnt _and_ rotten, like...Thanksgiving turkey carcass left to soak, then forgotten in the wake of too much eggnog.

(The fuh--?)

Eyes following nose, scenting before he sees, then _seeing,_ all in one breathless rush--blood on the radiator, literally cooking; heat's been turned on, and the room's such an oven already Vern didn't even notice. While Beecher, source of all that stinky red stuff, crouches as far away from those searing metal coils as the bike-chain will let him get, with his mouth still glued to his bad wrist. He's worried through one healed suicide attempt scar with his lower teeth, using them as a blunt enamel saw; dark red bibs lips, wrist and teeth, as if someone's forced him to eat a whole tube of lipstick.

Later, Vern won't be able to remember covering the distance between them, let alone popping the lock on cuffs or chain. Just how white Beecher looks, wet teeth chattering, as Vern rips his own sleeve to tourniquet the wound. And the sound of his own voice crooning, pleading, _threatening_ Beecher, in an endless, half-whispered mantra: "Oh you fuck, you cunt you, don't you _dare_ think you can die on me now, you cowardly fuckin' _fuck,_ you--DON'T you...FUCKING... _DARE..._ "

And Beecher, ears almost seeming to perk like a dog's--Beecher, somehow tuned as always to that frequency they share, the unspeakable, inadmissable current of Vern's--

(need?)

Beecher grinning back at Vern, teeth black with his own blood. And slurring, as he does: "Guess ya...don' geh ta save me...af'er all."

( _...don't you DARE leave me..._ )


	5. Chapter 5

The rest of the night goes by in a blink, punch-drunk and panting. Vern can't remember moving this fast since that time Cory fell off the jungle-gym. Whipping around in mid-thought, already launched without even knowing what his target was, lost in the first frozen note of Rachel's scream; no thoughts, no plans, just pure momentum. Something's wrong, so GO, you shit-for-brains--find it, fix it, and fuck whatever's in your way...

One more list, ticked off in breathless increments. Down the steps and out onto the street, too fast to register how winded he already is; drag-hauling Beecher's bleeding, barely-conscious body headlong over to All-Saints--not all that far away, thankfully for Vern's already-aching back--and dumping him unceremoniously in front of the hospital's admissions desk as the nurse on duty jumps to her feet, yelling for security. Then slipping clear somehow, losing himself in the crowds outside, running like a rat right on back to his home sweet hole of choice: SC--L--NGE-'S -EATS, his dead Dad's shop, site of Vern's recent, oh-so-unsuccessful amateur intervention into his former prag's new career as a booze-crazed bum. And empty now of everything but Schillinger Senior's insulation-wrapped corpse, give or take the ruin of a few "good intentions".

Upstairs again, scanning the room automatically; knowing he has no time, but taking it all in anyway. Sucking the scene of the crime up in jagged little flashes, observation cut with memory--sheets in a stained tangle, cuffs lying empty on top, plastic-slicked length of bike-chain still cooking against the blood-splattered radiator behind them...

With Beecher superimposed over all of it, a (hopefully) still-living ghost: staring up at him, blue eyes dark with grim amusement, mouth still clamped way too tight to one bitten-out wrist. Mumbling, around a mouthful of his own flesh: _Guess--ya--don' geh ta save me--af'er all._

 _Well, guess NOT,_ Vern thinks. Then gives his head a quick, savage shake, not quite hard enough to clear it. But catches himself musing, nevertheless--

White face, cold skin, sweat-soaked and slippery under Vern's fumbling fingers. That stained grin. Those wet teeth, blood-black.

_Just can't believe he'd do that. I mean, shit--like I'd ever even think he COULD, let alone would..._

('Cept that he _did._ )

_Yeah. Except for that._

"Always gotta get the last word, don't'cha?" Vern asks the empty room, out loud. "Fuckin', crazy--crazy, fuckin' little--"

Screw all that, though. Time to get busy, while Vern still can; clean up this mess, lit and fig, work out a plan for damage control. 'Cause this a pretty lose/lose situation he's got himself into here, after all. Worst-case scenario shoots it right on up to felony murder if Beecher spills his guts about getting "kidnapped" before dying, parole violation on a truly serious scale. Then arrest, conviction, back to Oz forever, and not spent playing Munchkin in Tim McManus's Emerald fuckin' City, either. Gen Pop, survival of the fittest, the same old jungle and the same old rules: eat the weak, keep to your kind, do what you gotta to get what you can. Which probably ain't gonna be quite the cakewalk it seemed last time 'round, either, considering how...

 _...you, my friend,_ Vern thinks, grimly, _are NOT as fit as you used to be, any more. Are you, Old Man?_

Half an hour later, he's just dragged the unsalvageable mattress--stiff with Beecher's blood--down a shallow hill into the garbage dump full of rats, trash and dozing junkie scum that used to be his childhood baseball sandlot. Place always has at least a couple of  cans of flaming debris handy; easy enough for Vern to tip the nearest one over onto the evidence, then leave it there to burn. After which he stands to watch the fire rise and spread, chin sunk collar-deep, hands in his pockets. Trying to run through all his remaining options with as much cold logic as possible, under the circumstances, one by one by one. And feeling, as he does...

...an idea begin to form.

Back at the ranch, Vern pulls his father's body from the freezer and humps it back up to the apartment proper, where he unwraps its jury-rigged garbage-bag coffin, lays it on the bare-springed bed and scours the kitchen for cleaning supplies to use on radiator and bed-frame alike. Stowing the cuffs, the chain and the rags in a handy plastic bag, he roots around further; finds a last pathetic pair of untapped bottles shoved in the back of what used to be his mother's closet: Stolnichaya, typically enough--cheating fuckin' lush couldn't even get drunk on something better than this Commie swill. Then turns the gas on, gives the house an hour to fill. Stuffs a leftover rag into one bottle's top, lights it, and heaves the resultant Molotov cocktail through the shop's front window.

Place goes up like a torch and keeps on going 'til morning, according to the next day's papers. Not that Vern stays to see.

*** 

Vern spends the next month fronting to Hamid, getting an even crappier asshole job (stomping around town with a pack, distributing flyers--guess all that mailroom experience finally paid off, huh, Schillinger?) to fill the void where Meteorscan used to be, then pretending to look surprised when the insurance investigators come calling. There's some kind of bullshit pending in terms of the Old Man's coverage, which he frankly lets wash over him; just makes sure to nod in all the expected places, before going right on back to what he was already doing. Biding his time, rebuilding his life, in the wake of his brief excursion into "charity" work--this inexplicable, haphazard, self-defeating-stupid impulse to do something for the same impossible-to-please slut who almost lost him his eye, almost cost him his parole. Took a shit on his face in front of half'a Em City, while mongrels like Alvarez and O'Reilly hooted and hollered appreciatively: _DO it, Beech, baby! Knock that fuckin' Nazi down, tie him up and oh my GOD, be fuckin' SERIOUS here--_

Then fast-forwarding ahead, (relatively) distant past seguewaying neatly into far more recent experience. Their next-to-last face-off, just before all that hallucinatory shit hit the fan and Vern finally gave in to his more-- _instinctual_ instincts: Beecher, fever-crazed and fractious, throwing his captor's half-assed attempts at unselfishness right back in his face. Shrieking like a toddler about how if he wants to end his USELESS FUCKING LIFE, he _WILL..._

_Yeah, well; no doubt about that, so feel friggin' free, cupcake. Don't let ME stop you._

(Not that you ever really _did._ )

_'Cause...I guess you really were broken beyond repair a long time 'fore I ever came along. And dumb-ass me for ever thinking--hoping--I could fix you, no matter my motivations._

Beecher, Tobias, Toby. Who left Vern aching and half-blind in the growing cold, this scratched cornea of his rendering him unable to get either a trucker's license or a job that makes anything close to decent money. Who could send him back to Oz with a single word, assuming he even survived his own little "wolf with its paw caught in a trap" imitation...but hasn't, so far. Hasn't done _anything,_ about the whole Project Samaritan fiasco, that Vern knows of.

(So FAR.)

 _You'd be able to tell if he was dead, though,_ that internal voice whispers. _Just feel it, somehow. And since you don't--_

_\--since I DON'T, so fuckin' what? What am I s'posed to be here, some kinda human Beech-hound?_

Say he's still kicking, then. Should Vern worry? Not like he's made any great effort to cover up his trail, after all. Still at his old "real" address, still listed in the phone-book...but even if he wasn't, lawyers have their little tricks, even _ex-_ lawyers. Even ones like Beecher.

Waiting. Wondering. A slow drip, softening his typical wary resolve into fitful sleep, lulling him into a false sense of...if not security, then...apathy, maybe. Beecher'll be back or he won't; Vern'll do something about it if (or when) it happens, do nothing 'till it damn well suits him. Que sera sera, and all that good Spic shit.

Until--

*** 

The phone starts up just as Vern comes through the door, dumping tomorrow's load of badly-printed bumf next to yesterday's load of still-unsorted laundry. He whips it up on the third ring, jamming it into the crook between collarbone and ear, and barks: "What?"

"Vern?"

...Rachel.

For maybe a minute, he just stands there--her voice rippling through him like a pacemaker's current, making his heart throb and trip with energy both familiar and almost unbearably painful. Listening as she feels her way, slowly sketching out a one-sided conversation: tells him how Cory's getting so much better he spoke a whole _word_ yesterday, how Jan's joined some detox program up at Lardner, how the nigger and that little--daughter--of hers...

(Well, maybe not.)

Trailing off, finally, as she registers his total lack of response. And asking, hesitantly: "Vernon--Vern, can you hear me, or what? You're still there, right?"

Yes, sweetpea.

"I mean..." A pause. "Just, look--are you...okay?"

Oh, and: _Sure, Rachel,_ he wants to snap back, _I'm great, I'm fine, I'm fuckin' lovely. Wife ran off with some Afro-American monkey-man, my junkie kids hate my guts, just got back from a five-year tour of jail. And let's not even talk about my recent venture into charity work, the way THAT particular project ended up..._

But: "My Old Man died," Vern hears himself say, instead. Feeling the words strike like a pick to his chest, cardiac-immediate--a jabbing, invasive, white-hot sudden pain--as something cracks wide, deep beneath his breastbone. As _something_ goes all shamefully soft and wet, a limp, liquid centre under nearly fifty years' worth of carefully built-up scar tissue armor. Something on his face now, hot and running and shit, is that...could those really be...tears?

Feeling it all, all at once, like he never did before; not when the bastard actually died, and not after, either. As Rachel's dimming voice repeats the same damn question, over and over--that lying, nigger-loving, lawfully-wedded bitch of his, book-smart enough to get through university by correspondence, but never once common sense street-smart enough to know when to _shut the fuck UP--_

"...are you okay? Vern?"

"No," he tells her, dully. And hangs up.

Alone in his one-room apartment, phone falling forgotten from one nerveless hand, Vern Schillinger takes a good, long look around; cocks his half-bald skull sidelong for the full effect, then swipes fiercely at his face with the other, hearing mucus rattle. Spots that second bottle of Karl Senior's vodka, the back-up cocktail he never quite got around to throwing out. Uncorks it. Takes a long swig. And keeps on drinking, shedding clothes steadily, even though he never drinks: not _ever,_ as a point of pride. A point of pure Aryan honor in this honorless, colorless, puke-grey mixed-race world he's trapped in, mud people multiplying like a landslide and crushing what few ice people still remain so far beneath the dirt they couldn't pull themselves up again with a fuckin' fork-lift, even if any of 'em still had balls enough to TRY--

\--'till at last he passes out, face-down, on his empty bed.

*** 

In the dream that follows, washing over him like some deep tide of memory-turned-fantasy, Vern's back in Oz, like always: mid-route, delivering mail to Cellblock Three, aka Fag Central--a task he usually farms out to anybody handy, since AIDS is one of his few true phobias and these death-sentenced cocksuckers crowding 'round him now make him far more nervous than he likes to admit, awake or asleep. But here he is anyway, steering his truck past row on row of cells crammed with grinning, flirting, lipstick and mascara-layered faces--and there's Beecher in the next cell over, trying on that same hideous dress he wore at the talent show, with the Em City bitch-queen Vern paid to give him a makeover archly playing bridesmaid...

Hoo, man--talk about fashion disasters. 'Cause skanky hooker-red just ain't your color, is it, Tobe?

 _He'll look better with his warpaint on,_ Queenie suggests, as Beecher just sits there with shoulders drooping, wearing that some sullen no-look Vern's come to know so well. Glancing over the "guy"'s shoulder, one brow faintly quirked, his thoughts flaring like invisible ink beneath that spreading, inevitable flush: _Think this'll put the "romance" back in our relationship, SIR?_

(Well, hell...could do.)

Moment overlaid on moment, peeling away like skin; a sharp little twitch at his groin as he gets a brief flash-cut of Beecher appearing at the pod-door in full prag drag, heralded by Scott Ross' erupting hoot. And Vern, blinking mildly up at this apparition of his will made flesh. Drawling: _My God. You look...even prettier'n I thought you would._

But he doesn't want to _laugh,_ not this time. Not exactly.

Squinting at him and thinking, with that same damn dream-logic as last time in action once again, connecting dots and taking names in the twisty underground maze of Vern's traitorous subconscious: _Bridesmaid. Bride. Beecher._

(Rachel.)

All dressed up and ready to go, and tricked out--not that he'd know--like an inadvertent parody of Vern's "dead" wife. Same pale skin and ice-blue eyes, same dull gold mop of disordered hair, same snub nose upturned in instinctive contempt for that frilly horror of an outfit. The kinda sexist little number Rachel'd just flat-out never wear, not even if Vern _asked_ her to...aw, Christ.

_I can't be THIS easy, surely._

( _You're NOT stupid, Vernon,_ he remembers Rachel throwing at him once, just before they really got down to it--her with her words, her oh-so-superior sneer, versus him with his baffled rage, his fists; think it'd be a fair fight, wouldn't you? But not so much. _Not complicated either, exactly. But definitely not dumb._ )

So stop _acting_ like it, idiot. Ask yourSELF, deep in your drunken stupor, safe from commentary or interference--down here where the only rules are the ones you make, or break--was _this_ maybe what you wanted all along, right from the start? That why you kept on pushing, prodding and poking and hiking the bar of allowably submissive behavior ever higher, when Beecher'd already rolled over and flashed you his soft underbelly (mmm, there's an image) too many times to count?

Such a tangled fuckin' mess of a marriage, its fallout left festering in the back of Vern's mind long after Rachel was nothing but a long-gone bad judgement call, her entire existence retroactively erased and denied. And Beecher, with his unwitting resemblance, waking some kind of need in Vern that went far beyond the normal parameters of punk-dom; the desire for someone he could push around, pose and preen, reward or punish as the impulse took him. Someone like Rachel physically, even mentally--addiction-prone, intellectual, an uptown "girl" with a serious downtown jones--but incapable of inspiring the passion behind Vern's betrayal, that baffled, yearning inability to own every last hidden part of her. That hot spark, that self-inflicted wound, that goddamn lunatic _love._ Same thing made him give her so much rope on the leash that she could just cut and run like the bitch she really was, leaving HIM hung out to dry 'stead'a having the common fuckin' decency to just hang _herself..._

...all of which brings us back to dream-Beecher, shivering silent in his fishnet-trimmed gown: caught fast on the same leash, basically, the one Vern's since pulled choking-tight. And still unable to see--not now, not ever--that if it hadn't been Vern's leash it would've always been somebody else's, somebody even worse. But never _no_ leash, not for a born toy like this one, and definitely not in Oz.

Vern considers him closely, his own eyes narrowed against the cell light's glare. And finds himself wanting, so badly it's like he's still too damn drunk to even care about how much jizz he's gonna leak, if anyone but the fags around him catch him doing it--to see Beecher transfigured for real, this one brief time. Make that game face slip, see that teasing flush mount and spread; watch those china doll's eyes glaze over, sweat starting sharp at his wrists, throat, temples...

 _You MIND?_ Vern snarls at the makeover bitch, who shrugs elaborately. Then sidles away, hips swinging, content to leave Vern and Beecher to their own devices while Vern runs exploratory fingers down the front of Beecher's dress, takes his time unhooking it clip by patient clip--slides the straps off those surprisingly broad shoulders and lets it slip, open, to Beecher's hips. White chest, dull gold fur; that fat-sleek little office-worker's gut plus a pink nub peeking through on either pec, already stiffening with unexpected cold. Vern lays his open mouth experimentally against the right one, breathes out hot and moist, hoping to feel Beecher shiver--then bites down hard once he does, just to hear him try...and fail...not to hiss out loud, like a cat in fuckin' heat.

(Not so prim _now,_ are ya, pussy-boy?)

And:

 _Toby,_ he thinks. _Baby._ Sliding a hand up under that hooker's skirt, groping for evidence and finding it, easily. 'Cause: _You really DO like this, don't'cha, slut? Well, DON'T'cha?_

Thought so.

Gnawing delicately at first one, then the other, 'till both are equally tender and swollen. Leaning Beecher steadily back against the bunk 'till he arches like a bow, legs folding around Vern's waist; moans and squirms and blushes deeply enough to (almost) match his dress, apparently helpless _not_ to push himself up against Vern's wounding, punishing mouth, again and again and again. And snuffling Beecher's scent in turn, marking himself with it like a dog, rolling his pounding forehead in the hollow of Beecher's throat; glutting himself, drunk and crazy, on the temptingly milk-fed smell of Beecher's skin--

 _\--and see?_ He wants to whisper into the pinkening curl of Beecher's ear, as he licks up over the flat curve of one cheekbone. _Doesn't HAVE to hurt, not every time--not if you don't MAKE me make it. Could always be this way, you'd just settle the fuck down and let me take whatever I want without a struggle..._

Still, there's that _voice_ again, chiming back: _Too bad he doesn't want this, though, huh? Not this way, and not the other, either. He just doesn't want YOU; never did, never will. And there's NOTHING you can do about that._

Screw it, Vern thinks, grimly. Beecher's his, so he'll do what he pleases with him. Anything. Everything. Even--

(love)

Fags all around him, watching through the bars; Queenie and company, giggling at the sight of that big, macho Nazi from the post office grabbing this year's prag by the ears and trying to suck his rough little pink tongue out by the roots. Bumping uglies with Beecher, hot flesh leaking against his zipper, crushed up too close for comfort against an answering erection. And knowing full well in his heart of hearts that this is _not_ Rachel, not in any way, shape or form--but not giving much of a runny shit whoever else knows it, not 'till he's got what's comin' to both of them...

_I mean, Jesus, what's it matter? Not like any of this actually happened, much as you might'a--wanted it to. Maybe. Sometimes._

_In your...literal...dreams._

Letting the tongue go, Vern fastens in on Beecher's lower lip and worries it. Glances up just in time to see Beecher clap his palms over his rolled-back eyes, like he's trying to hide from his own arousal--yet still spread himself wider, splayed and quivering, every dull gold hair on end. And hears himself again, growling loud enough to make his real throat thrum with effort: _No, you STAY--stay right here, right fucking now, with me. No goin' away, no pretending like this isn't happening, 'cause it sure as hell is--you got that, bitch? None of that "I'm not really here, YOU're not really here, not really doing this, not to ME" shit..._

A thumb biting into either wrist, forcing Beecher's arms out at right angles, like he's Christ on the cross or something. And Vern fixes him with his fiercest glare, repeating: _Keep those eyes open wide, right here, on ME. And stay, stay, stay--_

*** 

At which point, long before he can reach the end of that highly important statement, Vern jerks awake in mid-sentence, growl becoming a gasp; pain in his side from what feels like a proverbial swift kick in the ribs making him recoil and heave himself over onto arms already wedged uncomfortably behind his back, bound tight together with the same shirt he collapsed in. Trying for a roar, but managing only a winded yelp--realizing all at once that the room is full of a light, drifting fall of snow from a window he can't remember opening, that he's nearly naked (boxers and undershirt, pants tangled down around his boots like an extra set of cloth manacles) and still embarrassingly excited, the pre-cum wet-spot at his fly already half-frozen--

Vern blinks up, knocks his fuzzy head against the floor, strains to identify that figure leaning over him. But can't until it speaks, words filtering down through clinging layers of sleep: that too-familiar voice, sober the way he's not, all cold and clear and mocking. Replying, almost conversationally: "Oh, don't you worry, 'cause _I_ 'm not going _anywhere._ Not 'till we finally get a few things settled, you and me..."

...Vern-baby.


	6. Chapter 6

They pause for a moment together, caught between frames: Vern genuinely shock-stiff, world turned abruptly bass-ackwards--peering up as Beecher smirks down, taking obvious pleasure in this whole role-reversed tableau. Hasn't reverted to his old ways, either, that Vern can see: hair cropped and face fresh-shaven, that pansy-ass Gap For Men scent Rachel's nigger always seems to wear coming off his clean new clothes like some personal halo. Got a little cloth cast on the wrist he slit, bulky and stiff with bandages, plus a shiny new pair of glasses to mask his eyes. And he just stands there, hefting Vern's discarded bottle in one hand, refusing to give even the simple satisfaction of a one-liner, an insult, a how you been, you asswipe Nazi bastard...

Well, okay, then. Want me to make the first move, you got it--

(--Toby.)

But: Easier said than done, in the wake of--last night's? Still dark outside, not like that proves anything--booze-up. Vern squints again, trying to marshall his thoughts into some recognizable form, still half-befuddled by the vodka's after-effects, a throbbing band of hangover headache pulled down over his bleary eyes. Then clears his throat slow and easy, careful to keep his tone regular enough not to imply anything that might be even mistaken for fear, while Beecher keeps on studying him, smirk ripening to sneer, face just beginning to flirt with that same edge-of-crazy look Vern's trying his best to keep himself from seeing: That old, familiar...chair-hoisting look of his.

(You mean face- _shitting_ look, don't you?)

...hope NOT.

_For Chrissakes, though--it's just Beecher, right? No cops for back-up, nothing like that. Went to the trouble of tying you up before he WOKE you up, so he must still be afraid of what you might do to him if he tried it one-on-one with you, like a real fuckin' man..._

Vern opens his mouth, already bracing to defuse the situation with a cutting, rumbled comment. But finds himself blurting out instead, at the very last moment, as alcohol short-circuits his brain once more: "I _knew_ you wouldn't tell."

There's a weird sense of complicity in his voice; Beecher nods, obviously (maybe) feeling it too. And replying, coolly, either way: "Well, really--what was I gonna say, I did go to the cops? 'This guy hauled me off the streets, cleaned me up, got me all detoxed...' Yeah, they'd really knock themselves out trying to track down a...Samaritan...like that."

And: Huh. You put it _that_ way...

Casting the bottle in his hand a wistful little glance at the same time, though--like he's eyeing up some old girlfriend he doesn't trust enough to let her near his heart, or his wallet. And Vern, catching the look, shooting back: "Still a little left there, looks to me." A pause. "Soooo...care for a snort?"

It's a fair blow considering what little he has to work with, and it hits right where he's aiming for, all the way below the belt; guy'd still be dancing on street-corners and stinkin' of booze, after all, if it weren't for Vern putting himself out way beyond the boundaries of good sense. But in the back of his mind, he can almost hear his Dad's voice--resurrected by surprise, shooting shoulder pain, post-alcoholic stress, whatever--comment: _...like anything 'bout you and Beecher's ever been SENSIBLE._

(Shut the hell up, dead man.)

But Beecher doesn't respond, for once--not a flicker. Just comments, with a kind of sad affection: "Stoli. Now, there's some good shit to get drunk on."

"Guess you'd know."

"Well...guess I WOULD."

Beecher grins at the thought, dryly. Then glances back down at Vern's crotch, like he only just now noticed what there _is_ to notice. "Oh hey," he drawls, "looky here--the Viking Punishment Rod, large as life and twice as ugly. Been dreaming of the good old days, that what did the trick?"

(lucky guess, just a lucky fuckin' guess)

Frustrated equally with his former prag's newfound unflappability and his own uncheckable responses, Vern struggles for dismissive but winds up settling for snide--a subconscious imitation of Beecher himself. Snorting: "You wish, freak."

Sharper: "You WISH I wish."

_Fuck I do,_ Vern thinks of throwing back, but doesn't. Just shifts instead, straining to stay calm and hearing his pinned arms pop as he does, rotator cuffs wrenching. Immediately, he feels rage sweep up over him like a red-hot wave, frighteningly disproportionate. Unable to stop himself from barking back: "Just what the hell do you want, anyway, ToBIas? Seemed pretty desperate to get away from me _last_ time we played this kinda scene out, you--ungrateful, little--"

Cheerfully: "--cunt?"

(Ohhh, you bitchy little bitch, bitch, _bitch._ )

Got that I'm-so-clever note back in his voice, now he thinks he's on top--same one's always made Vern want to grab him by the neck, and shut him up with his tongue. Still does, actually--even now, with cold air from the open window raising gooseflesh everywhere but his lap, where Beecher's familiar heat hovers. And that intermittent puff of minty toothpaste breath, lighting Vern's cheek again and again, caressingly...

'Cause: _You ARE getting turned on by this little two-step,_ another voice whispers, now; Rachel's, he's pretty sure. _Aren't you, Vernon? Just a bit. Be honest, for once._

(Well--maybe a little bit more than a _bit._ )

And how fucked up is that, exactly? Pretty fuckin' fucked.

"Hmmm," Beecher muses, as he taps the bottle repeatedly, making it ring like a faraway liquid bell. "What do I want. What _do_ I want..."

...before smashing it hard against the wall behind him, spraying them both with booze and glass, then dropping down onto Vern's waist from above, shockingly heavy, his unexpected weight forcing all Vern's breath out in a single concentrated grunt. Observing to himself, a second later: "Man. That feels so--damn--good."  


Vern wheezes beneath him, trapped with nowhere to run and nothing to do but clench his Adam's apple against the bottle's broken neck, a sharp shard of glass grazing the skin over his jugular. While Beecher leans in close enough to warm Vern's mouth, now--all trace of the stinky, too-proud-to-beg beggar Vern once took in apparently washed away like dirt down a hospital shower's drain, along with every last shred of amusement from his voice.

"What I _want,_ " he repeats, "is for you not to move any way but how I tell you to, or you're dead. SIR."

(Oh _ho,_ boy howdy, I do NOT think so)

Spurred on by a visceral spasm of-- _something,_ he doesn't even want to take the time to figure out what--Vern tries to rear up, knowing in his bones this'll be his last and only chance to break free, to throw Beecher off with one good heave. But Beecher just presses the glass deeper, cautioning: "Ah ah AH, wouldn't if _I_ were you--"

"Get off'a me, fuckwad--"

"Magic word, Vern-o."

"--fuck YOU, get _off--_ "

A crowing snarl: "Nooooo, _that_ ain't it!"

Vern pauses, panting. Clears his throat again--drier, this time. Managing, at last: "You wouldn't."

"Oh, I think it's pretty much pushing your luck to bet on what I 'wouldn't do', don't you, Vernon? Plain fact is, after Oz..."

(...after YOU...)

" _...I_ don't even know what I wouldn't do, most days."

After which, not waiting for a response--probably a good idea, since Vern can't really think of one right now, off-hand--Beecher slides just that bit further down, studying Vern's bad eye at too-close range as his bottle-hand plays nasty little games with the hinge of Vern's jaw. Presses his chest to the Nazi eagle's wing, letting their heartbeats synchronize, before rising up to lay the glass-edge lightly against that scarified nick in Vern's lower lid and inquire (all polite smoothness once more, like they're sharing coffee-cake confidences at some garden fuckin' tea party): "Never did get around to asking, but...'bout how much _can_ you see out of this eye?" Dips closer still, then, almost cheek to cheek. "Or, to put it another way--how far you think you'd be _able_ to see, if I popped the other one like an egg?"

And: FUCK, he'll do it, you _know_ he'll do it--

(Did it BEFORE)

Continuing, tapping gently at that same dead spot, mock-playful: "Y'know, just made a little incision, say--HERE, for example--"

\--and suddenly, Vern can feel a hot, wet tickle streaking down along his cheek. Blood from where Beecher's obviously pressed just that last tiny bit too hard and cut him, somehow, without even knowing it. Without even seeming to notice. Liquid, plus a subtle sting, only recognizable now Vern _makes_ himself recognize it. Plus something Vern hasn't felt in years; admitted to feeling, at least.

(Fear.)

He tries not to show it, now more than ever. Struggles with it manfully, 'cause he's such a...man, after all...but he can't actually STOP it. Not--entirely.

Through dry lips: "You're gonna do something, then go on ahead and _do_ it."

Beecher: "Don't you. Tell me. What to DO."

Adding more taps as he says it, harder still, for extra punctuation; provoking more--tickling--along with each feather-light strike. Vern feels sweat on the back of his neck, cold rather than blood-hot. And: "Lookin' a little scared, there, sweetpea," Beecher observes, voice gone all cheerful again. To which Vern just swallows again, giving a truncated shrug--as much of one, at any rate, as his position allows for.

"Be stupid not to be," he replies.

"Uh huh. So why am I still feeling your dick against my ass?"

Carefully: "Guess you'd have to take that up with my _dick._ "

(Fuckin' thing's always had a mind of its own.)

And that's the right little touch of mood-breaking levity at last, maybe, off the cuff though it might have come. Because it's apparently enough to make Beecher grin slightly, sit back with perfect, leisurely timing; look at the bottle-neck. Look--down. Then suggest, silkily: "How do you know that isn't what I always had in mind?"

( _Cupcake._ )

Vern resists the urge to shrug, choosing to wait Beecher out instead. Then lets out a long, slow breath when the crazy little shit finally sighs slightly and shifts back, digging himself in for a nice long monologue: always did like the sound of your voice, huh, Toby? Like every fuckin' lawyer.

"So here's what happened after you left me at the hospital, just in case you've been wondering," Beecher begins, detouring briskly back into "normalcy". "They sling me in bed, pump me full of antibiotics and whatever...I wake up a day later and the cops are there, my mother is there, my grandmother--hell, my _Dad_ 's there, and he didn't even come to see me in Oz. And they're all like _oh Toby, it's been soooo long, we thought you were DEAD..._ "

"Yeah, sure--dead in a ditch of AIDS, with your fuckin' liver exploded."

Beecher flushes. "Says the man I found lying in a drunken stupor."

"That's different."  


"Oh, yeah. Always is."

Now it's Vern's turn to flush--not as prettily, but then, he doesn't have quite the same material to work with. "Look," he snarls, before he can remember to censor himself, "my damn WIFE called me yesterday, all right? She--"

(--aw, fuck.)

Beecher frowns. "Your _wife?_ From where, beyond the grave?" But Vern just looks at him, silent, knowing he's already said too much; seconds later, Beecher finally connects the dots, blue eyes slanting with outrage. "Oh, man. 'Cause she's not even _dead,_ is she? You big, fat, fucking LIAR. Lying, fucking, closeted Nazi shit..."

"Closeted?" Vern snaps.

"As in--in the closet?"

"I. Am NOT a fag."

Never have been, never will be. Inside, out, where-fuckin'-ever. And no matter _what_ Vern's Old Man might'a said--almost every other day--back before Vern wrapped him in plastic.

Beecher nods, understandingly. "A fag being best defined as...a guy who screws other guys."

_Not if they're on TOP,_ Vern thinks, automatically. Snapping back, at the same time: "Fuck--"

"--me? Well--there's your whole problem in a nutshell, isn't it?"

Back into his story, then, with Vern left fuming, still too well-pinned to thrash his anger away. And Beecher's hoity Yuppie voice, droning on and on and on: "So there I am, lost and found again: lawyer turned con turned raving homeless drunk makes miracle recovery, film at eleven. And I'm lying there in bed, telling everybody who asks that I don't remember one single, solitary thing about it, any of it, because I'm just so damn _grateful_ \--remember that word, SIR?--to be the hell away from you. From anywhere near you, anywhere you can be--near--me..." Beecher pauses, trailing away. Softer: "And then, after I've been resting for a while--I start to think."

_( _Never the world's best idea, I seem to recall, when we're talkin' 'bout you._ )  
_

Vern makes no particular effort to look interested even when Beecher throws him another glance, narrower, and far more pitiless. Continuing: "See, it's that word. 'Grateful.' Must've used it ten times if you used it once, and I have to wonder; do you truly just not GET why I, still--why _you--_ " He pauses again, gathering his breath; Vern can feel a shiver pass through him, shifting thigh against thigh, the bottle-neck stirring scratchily beneath Vern's chin. Then asks, shifting mental gears yet one more time: "You remember when I had to go see Mrs Rockwell? Sister Pete tells McManus and McManus tells me, _after_ he's already got the whole thing set up--gotta take responsibility for my own actions, 'cause 'you're not the only victim here, Tobias'..."

"Fuckin' McManus."

"Oh yeah, fucking McManus--'cause for once, the self-righteous son-of-a-bitch was right. Killing Kathy Rockwell, that was _not_ all about me, any more than what happened with you and me was all about YOU. I mean...I get out of the bin and my wife's already dead, for real; she runs a hose in through the car window, and my kids find her, and she leaves a note saying's it's all my fault. And me, I do what I always do, man--I start drinking, hard. All day, all night, mixing it up with those drugs they gave me, 'till I can't even remember _who_ I am anymore: not the lawyer, not the killer. Not your prag. Not Gen's husband. Not the biggest fucking failure on the face of the fucking earth..." One beat more, held 'till the breath rattles in Beecher's throat, 'till he shivers and gulps, eyes not quite shutting. "Yeah, I'm out and I'm gone, without a trace, and it just feels so _good_ to be gone I can't even tell you, Vernon. Until...YOU come along, and wreck it."

And it's true, Vern knows it's true: couldn't just keep on walking by, could you, like any normal person? Throw him a coin or don't, shrug past him every day--not after you decided you thought you knew who he _was._ 'Cause once something's "yours", you can't EVER leave it alone, can you? Not even if it wants you to.

Beecher: "So what happens then? Apparently, you feel bad, because of everything you did. To me."

But: _Call bullshit on that, though,_ Vern catches himself thinking, even with the sharp edge to his jugular. _'Cause the REAL deal is, Toby--baby--whatever might or might not've got done, you did that to yourSELF. All I ever did was help._

"You feel bad," Beecher repeats. "To which I say congratu-fucking-lations, 'cause it doesn't change a thing and I'm the guy should know. You can feel sorry 'till the cows come home, but Kathy's still dead and I'm still fucked, and you're still you and I'm still me and never the twain shall meet. Well...hardly ever." Leaning closer: "And let me tell you something _else,_ now I've finally got your undivided attention--"

_Like I could stop you,_ Vern thinks. And remembers, with a wrench, his own voice saying--something, fuck, what _was_ it, anyway? Something so...similar.

_Could always be like this, you dizzy little 'ho, if you'd just give me what you know I want, 'stead'a always making me TAKE it._

Fantasy folding into memory, then unfolding, flipping, turning itself inside out: hard to tell exact what DID happen from what didn't, couldn't, never ever would. Hearing--some highly internalized version of--himself order Beecher to _just tell me I'm top, I'm the best, I'm king; tell me I'm strong, I'm generous, I'm better than you deserve. Tell me you want to be here, with me--tell me you love me, like you mean it. And then..._

... _mean it._

_'Cause it's all gonna happen anyway, right? I'm just gonna keep on doing this, over and over, whenever the fancy takes me. Right?_

Riiiight.

"After all this time," Beecher explains, "I finally do understand how you must've thought I was agreeing to what happened, when I asked McManus to put me in your pod. You 'save' me from Adebisi, I give up my booty; fine, I get it-- _now._ Though how you could've thought I understood back then, when the whole concept was so totally beyond my experience up to that point...well, hmmm. That's a whole 'nother question."

Dipping closer still now, cheek almost on top of Vern's, while staring steady into the same eye he damaged, face deformed by perspective. And lowering his voice even further, whispering: "You keep calling me 'ungrateful' because I get a little queasy around the guy who raped me, _repeatedly._ But look at it my way, for fucking once: If you really wanted me to feel something more than hate and anger and repulsion when I think about you, then maybe you just shouldn't've gone at it that way, know what I mean? Let alone did all that...other stuff."

"I looked after you, goddamnit; admitted it yourself. I kept you safe--"

"You _fucked me up the ass,_ Vernon."

Vern hisses through his nose, alight with almost equally intense--though far more repressed--rage. Thinking: _Shit, I still remember that first time I saw you drifting through the quad, staring at the place where your watch used to be; stunned little bunny, too arrogant to ask directions, waiting around for the next pair'a headlights to come mow you down. Nodding and smiling at everybody you met, up to and including that fuckin' jig-on-wheels Hill, like you knew for sure you could get something for nothing if you only acted polite enough. Talk soft, be nice, say 'please' and 'thanks', ring up charges 'till the cows come home and never have to deliver..._

And: "Well, that's just the way it WORKS, _Toby,_ " he snarls back. "In--"

(Oz)

"--the _real_ world."

They stare at each other again, busted back down to pretty much where they started out. With Beecher so near that Vern can feel the heat pour off of his skin as that flush mounts to his hairline, regular as clockwork, or trace the sparkle of fine blond stubble along his jaw when he thrusts that lower lip of his out in a thwarted teenage hooker's pout. Finally casting Vern a--swear to Christ, from this angle it looks like flirty--little sidelong glance, from under his lowered gilt fringe of lash; stirs restlessly in Vern's lap again, apparently intent on finding the least comfortable possible position, for both of them. Observing, to himself, as he does: "...still can't even look at me, without that _thing_ of yours pumping up like a damn car jack..."

Vern bristles. "Like you're such a fuckin' prize. 'Sides--"

\--what the fuck's the "thing" down south there, almost a match for size and hardness, rubbin' up against _my_ inner thigh?

Beecher catches the implication; glances down, then up again, with a stylish little flip of his head: _Oh, that._ Half-straightens his (no doubt cramped) legs, deliberately, making the crotch of his nice new silk-weave suit-pants...flex. And: "Vern," he says, mock-sadly. "You really think that _means_ anything? Trained response, baby. Just like..." He trails off, then asks, out of nowhere in particular: "Don't suppose you're ticklish, huh?"

"The fuck THAT's got to do with any--"

Reaching down: "Well, let me see."

Two stiff little fingers, hooking up under his waistband; Beecher's cast scraping along the wet, suddenly freed head of Vern's stupid-assly still-rigid cock, letting it thwap up hard against white cloth and velcro. And giving that cat-sneeze laugh of his as it happens, with just a hint of nutty titter thrown in for bad measure, while Vern twists beneath his touch--teased, scalded. Observes: "Naaah, thought not. 'Cause if you were, you'd know that when someone you tickle happens to laugh, it's not usually because they think what you're doing is _funny._ "

Vern gulps one more time, aroused to the point of pain, throat so dry it scratches. But can't stop himself from growling: "Never heard you complaining."

"Yeah, well," Beecher snaps, that feral gleam back in his eyes, "you never exactly ASKED, either."

Flicking at Vern's ruck-hooded flange with his nail and drawing a fresh snarl, along with an embarrassingly slick drip of lube. And cooing: "So how's that feel, right now? Like you wanna laugh?"

Not...exactly.

"Just what the hell are you tryin' to--"

Another flick, plus a deft, full-body undulation; Beecher's got a knee on either side of Vern's thigh now, draped over the rest of his ex-"owner"'s bulky, outstretched body like a human electric blanket, new pockets of sweet fire blooming everywhere they connect. Digging his stubbly chin into Vern's collarbone and murmuring, against the heaving side of his neck: "--prove? Oh, I'm just paying you back, Vern, that's all...for all the many, many things you've done for me, 'ungrateful' pussy-bitch prag that I am. 'Cause, to be frank...I don't really want to _owe_ you anything. Anymore."

Vern bucks one last time, feeling his rotator cuffs blaze, hearing what must be a piece of glass crunch as he squirms uncontrollably, trying to unseat his tormentor. But Beecher only keeps on laughing, contemptuously--presses him back with casted hand and bottle-neck alike, rubbing and humping against him like a dog, piston-thrusting his clothed crotch so it jousts for precedence with Vern's unclothed one. Beecher's buried voice thrumming through the flesh below Vern's clavicle as his fingers dip lower, busy themselves up and down Vern's shaft, and noting: "Sure does seems like you want me to keep on doing what I'm doing, though, SIR..."

"This--" Vern grits, "--is a simple--physical--fuckin'--response."

The same 'understanding' nod cut with a smile, skin-smothered, a toothy, derisive hidden grin. "Just like how _I_ used to get hard, seem as though I was enjoying myself, buck and moan and fucking _come,_ even, yet the whole time I was begging you to stop." Another thrust. "'Member? Which I guess must mean... _I_ didn't really 'want it,' either."

"Arrrr, go screw your--"

Thrust. Jerk. Fire where they touch. Flame rising, unstoppable, behind Vern's eyes--lids squeezed shut and bloody sting forgotten, broken bottle-edge still digging in, Beecher's cast dirtying itself on the cold wooden floor beneath them both. Pins and needles, crushed glass-dust driving itself deeper beneath Vern's skin like a rash, hangover headache and bloody lip kiss, back and forth like the bruising beat of a drum.

But: "NO," Beecher hisses back, practically into Vern's mouth. "This is me screwing _you,_ Vern-baby, ME using YOU--gonna get my nut, then get the fuck out. So how's it feel, you being the one on bottom for a change? How's it fuckin' well _feel?_ "

Feels so, _feels,_ so--God--damn--

\--RIGHT.

A final muffled, strangled noise breaking from Vern's mouth only to disappear between Beecher's lips; a keening cry, half moan, half...well, that wouldn't be a squeal, now, would it? Surely not.

(More like a whine, Vern supposes, now he thinks about it. Or even...a sob.)

But expelled either way as Beecher's teeth meet his, painful enamel-clack triggering a final explosion: Gulping in Vern's climax like mouth-to-mouth in reverse, a cat sucking a baby's breath. Then followed only by silence, barely broken by ragged breath; wet mess everywhere, already turning cold. And Vern, lying there limp and shaking, aching with self-hatred...all fucked out with nowhere to go, and no one to blame but himself, damnit...

Beecher pulls away, orders himself somewhat. Pokes Vern in the stomach, and demands, without preamble: "Your parole officer, what's his name?"

"...Hamid. Roshan, Rushan, Ramon, somethin' like that--"

"Phone number?" Vern reels off a string of digits, only stumbling once. " _Thank_ you."

Post-come lassitude already kicking in, apartment blurring around the edges: Vern's going down hard and happy to do so, truth be told. More than, given those lingering unasked questions: what is it you're planning on doing with that info, TOby? Do I even want to know?

(Probably not.)

But here's Beecher one last time, back on his feet with fly zipped and hair slicked back, all credit in the straight world restored once more. Yet leaning down towards Vern again, anyhow, if only just to say: "So here's the really funny part, SIR. The big joke...and it's a doozy, 'specially in context..."

As Vern just keeps on fading throughout--fast, faster, fastest. Thinking, over Beecher's pissy rant: _Jesus, man--can't you ever figure out when to shut the fuck UP, you fuckin' little prep-school debating team pansy? Unless damn well made to?_

"...I'm in Oz, I just killed somebody, my life as I know it has just been hung by the neck 'till dead dead dead; Gen and I were probably going to get divorced anyway, no matter what. I know that now. So you come around, doing your Big Daddy thing--all that bullshit sympathy, the arm on the shoulder and the big old smile: _Sucks,_ don't it, buddy? And it's not like you have NO charm, when you put your mind to it. You could've seduced me, gotten me used to the idea, broken me in easy; hell, I might've even thought I loved you, after a while. That's just how fucked up I was.

"But noooo. Not like you started and then you stopped-- _you_ never even tried. And why is that, huh? I mean, you let on like you're some kind of Aryan king shit, some pure-blood measure of a man...but deep at heart, I don't think you think anyone'd be CAPABLE of loving you, at all. Whether you let them, or not."

Vision narrowing, inexorably, bad eye first: Beecher shrinking to a backlit line, his face a dull gold corona. Blue eyes peering down through the haze, as incalculable pressure pulls Vern further and further beyond where he can summon enough interest to care about what just happened, let alone figure out what it might mean. Then a hand touches his forehead, smoothes his lids shut, the whole room disappearing right before his mind's startled eye: a heart attack, a pulled plug, a brain tumor scraping away at his last conscious thought. Peeling it free and wiping it out from the bottom up, like some cosmic etch-a-sketch pad.

"Thank you anyway, Vernon," Beecher's voice seems to tell him, right next to his temple--vowels and consonants crushed flat by the weight of encroaching blackout, a bare articulate sigh. "For..."

(everything)

_Oh, you're so very welcome, sweetpea._

Followed by darkness, to the almost infinite power. A whole lot of nothing. Just more of Beecher's voice, singing softly: _Ohhhhh...Lord above me, make him love me, the way he SHOULD..._

After which Vern wakes up, a whole day later--hands unbound, head clear, alone in his glass-filled bed. Same bed, same place, same empty, Beecher-less, post-Oz life he's now gonna have to lie in, whatever might--or might NOT--come next. 'Cause, like the old song says, Vernon, _you_ got it bad. And...

_...tha-a-at....ain't...good._


End file.
